


Space (All I Think About is You and Me)

by ohjustdisarmalready



Category: Sanders Sides, Thomas Sanders
Genre: Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, Family Dynamics, Gen, Plotty, Universe Building, establishing why Virgil was the only dark side around for like forever, mild suspense, my city now, this is not canon but it hasn't been stated to be untrue yet so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-05-01 13:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14521329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjustdisarmalready/pseuds/ohjustdisarmalready
Summary: Ever wondered why only five aspects influence Thomas's entire personality?That's just the way it's always been.In other words: Virgil takes a chill pill of once in his strange, strange life; Patton gets big mad; Logan gets some makeup tips; Roman goes on a journey of self-discovery; and Deceit works out his daddy issues. It's fine.





	1. Prologue: By the Pricking of My Thumbs

**Author's Note:**

> **Note about Deceit (spoilers ahead!):**  
>  I'm new to this fandom, so I haven't talked to a lot of folks yet. I do know that some people find Deceit troubling and some do not. In this story, he is a sympathetic character, but not every character sees him that way. He's not a monster, but he has done things that weren't good. **Spoiler** : he does have a happy ending. If you need more specifics, feel free to ask me!
> 
> I'm really proud of this fic, I worked hard on it. I hope you enjoy it!

They’re eating. Not something they logically need, but Logan can’t deny the effects of food towards cohesive bonding and group unity. And the new efforts towards including Anxiety—Virgil—demand some feel-good behavior, no matter how much he might claim not to care either way.

But eating together means they get to spend some time together while Roman’s mouth is too busy to prattle on, so it’s a good start.

It also means they’re all together when Virgil spaces out the first(?) time.

“…made a new pasta recipe! And Virgil didn’t let me put ice cream in it, but that’s okay! Not everyone has to have good taste, we love our favorite dark little stormcloud either way,” Patton says, nudging Anxiety, who reacts approximately not at all.

“Ice cream does not belong in…no, I cannot let that stand. Patton, you cannot put ice cream in…no,” Logan says for him. The nutritional value alone…! Not to mention the taste! He scoops more Crofters™ onto his serving, shuddering. How horrible. What a terrible idea.

Roman looks at his pasta suspiciously, sword materializing at his waist.

“Hey, Tall, Dark, and Gloomy, you uh…you were being your paranoid self the whole time, right? You didn’t leave Patton alone with the food ever? Constant Virgilance?” he asks, glancing between the potentially contaminated pasta and Virgil. Logan grimaces at the pun.

Virgil keeps absolutely still, midway through playing with his food and staring vaguely at nothing. His shoulders aren’t moving with breath and his eyes aren’t focused.

“Anxiety…?” Logan prompts. “Are you experiencing a panic attack? Is something wrong?”

Virgil doesn’t react. He’s not even ignoring them.

“Anybody home?” Princey asks, waving his hands in front of Virgil’s face. “Did the pasta kill you?”

Patton frets and looks to Logan for help.

“If he’s having a panic attack, shouldn’t he be…?” He heaves a few massive breaths and curls inward, vaguely mimicking a rocking motion. Logan shakes his head.

“Panic manifests differently for everyone depending on personality and experiences. It’s possible that this is what a panic attack looks like for Virgil, even if it’s not how we would react. We should give him space and take care not to overwhelm him,” he suggests, as Roman grabs Virgil’s shoulders and shakes him violently.

“Wake up! Stop…whatever you’re doing! Be here!” he shouts, and Virgil startles.

“What the fuck, Prince Pompadour? Ever heard of a little personal space?” he demands, jumping up to crouch on his chair like a gremlin instead of sitting down like a civilized person.

“Prince _Pompadour_? That’s not even what my hair looks like!” Roman protests. “I saved you from…I dunno, being weird! The least you could do is be grateful about it!”

“It’s a personality trait. Pompadour aura,” Virgil says nonsensically. How would someone…?

“A pompadaura!” Patton exclaims, and there goes any chance of resolving this rationally. Logan groans.

“Look, it’s not my best material, okay? It’s what came to mind first! You were just shaking me for no reason!” Virgil says, shrugging Roman’s hands off with some difficulty. Roman doesn’t seem too sure about letting go.

“You were being weird! The internet says you’re supposed to break the spiral before it can get worse!” Roman’s hands pat at Virgil’s sweater, unable to get a good grip with all the squirming Anxiety is doing. He can be very slippery when he wants to be.

“Roman, you’re not supposed to crowd him! Patton, just stop…whatever that is. Virgil. Do you know where you are?” Logan tries to bring them back out of loud, overwhelming territory, and Virgil gives him one of those startled ‘you’re helping me?’ looks. Logan cannot for the life of him remember whether you’re supposed to make eye contact with someone who’s panicking or not. He led the seminar on supporting Anxiety, he should know this!

“I’m, uh, I’m not…spiraling? We were just eating and you started acting like a bunch of freaks,” Virgil fidgets, shifts his weight, decides to remain crouched, and glares suspiciously at the room in general.

Patton ruffles his hair. “Don’t scare your old man like that! We thought you were in trouble! Did you see a spider?”

He joins Virgil in wild suspicion for a moment before Anxiety shakes his head.

“I didn’t see anything…? Seriously, what gives?” he’s shrugging Roman’s hand’s off his shoulders again with a look that suggests maybe Roman should ‘move it or lose it,’ as they say.

“You stopped moving. You didn’t appear to be breathing. We surmised that you were having an anxiety attack, and Roman overreacted, as usual,” Logan tells him. It’s best to keep the panicking party grounded in the situation at hand.

Anxiety stares at him.

“An…anxiety attack,” he says. Logan furrows his brow. It had seemed like a straightforward conclusion.

“You were unresponsive and we couldn’t call you attention to the present moment,” he justifies. “It was the best explanation.”

Anxiety chuckles and Logan is abruptly reminded that, much as he works with them nowadays, Virgil is dark. Dark, and grinning at him in a distinctly unnerving way, crouched over his chair like he’s about to pounce.

“Oh, you’d know if I was attacking someone,” he purrs, “I prom—”

“Well, I’m just so glad you’re doing okay! You had me worried for a second there, kiddo!” Patton strikes before either Anxiety or Logan—or Roman, come to think about it—can, capturing Virgil in a hug.

Abruptly, the darkness disappears, and Virgil is left looking awkward and off-balance and much smaller than he was before. Looking at him hunched over a kitchen chair and fending off the affections of Morality, Logan is reminded just as suddenly that Virgil’s ‘dark’ persona is, to coin a phrase, a load of bullshit. Somehow it’s so easy to forget when he’s looking all spooky and muttering ominously.

“I, um, I mean, yeah,” Virgil puts his hand over Patton’s and—unusually gently—removes Patton from his person. “Literally just spaced out for like, a second. Dunno why you guys are all freaking out.”

“You could have been poisoned! By a dragon-witch! Or—oh, that gives me an idea…” Roman grins, ambitious.

“We’re not killing me off in a video,” Virgil tells him.

“What? No! Why did you just jump right to—no, no, I don’t want to know. Take your emo and leave it in your performance, Mar—” Logan cuts him off before the conversation can devolve further.

“You raise an interesting point, Virgil,” he says.

“I do?” Virgil looks at him, surprised, and Patton takes the opportunity to fill his plate and put his fork in his hand. He looks at it. “I don’t want this.”

“Growing darklings need their food! You _will_ eat the meal we prepared together with all the love in our hearts!” Patton grins and actually, really, Morality is the scariest person in the room. Logan takes a quick bite, too, to avoid his wrath.

“What I’m saying is, we were all concerned by what happened just now, and despite having lost time and not having a good explanation for why, you seem to be unusually at ease,” he says once he’s swallowed. Virgil glances at him and shrugs.

“Come to think of it, shouldn’t you be doing your…doom and gloom thing? This is the beginning of the end, fall of an empire?” Roman makes a gesture with no interpretable meaning. Virgil ignores both of them entirely in favor of appeasing Patton, who smiles sunnily as he takes a hesitant bite of pasta.

“I can definitely taste the paprika,” is his insightful commentary, followed immediately by half a wineglass of Gatorade. Patton bounces.

“I know! I added extra when you weren’t looking!”

Logan glances at his own dish, disturbed, and the incident isn’t mentioned again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About half of this is written right now. It was planned as a oneshot and now has 3ish chapters, so count on at least 4 because I have the planning skills of a mildly damp fingerless glove. I'll be getting the next chapter up maybe tomorrow? But please let me know if you like it so far, I thrive on feedback!


	2. If All Else Perished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil notices something. Then he overshares.
> 
> One way or another, he is the reigning king of having dozens of unnecessary backup plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! The first real chapter. The title, like all the chapter titles, is from a relevant part of a great work of linguistic art. Here, it's from a monologue in _Wuthering Heights_ by Bronte, reigning literary master of my heart. The whole line is really good for this chapter, but pretty long and I don't want to annoy anyone by monologuing in the notes. But it's [here](http://hahanoiwont.tumblr.com/post/173555781524) if you want to look!

The thing is, for all he’s closest of the bunch of them to Virgil, Patton can’t claim to know his shadow son forwards and backwards. He’s dark and mysterious! It’s part of his allure. So he’s not too concerned when the kiddo starts acting a little different, especially as he’s just learning how to be less edgy around them. It’s a growing curve!

But Virgil’s been stalking through the fringe for nearly two decades, and before that he was almost sort of one of them. Patton might not be the most observant, but there are things he expects by now.

Especially because…Virgil is Anxiety. He’s fear, and angst, and pain, and caution, and (no one tell Roman) he’s courage. He can side with Logan all he wants, or sneer at the idea of happy butterflies, but…

Patton doesn’t think about it deliberately, intentionally, very often. It’s just kind of a fact, right? But more than any of the other sides, Virgil is his son, or his brother, or his…something. He’s literally made of all the parts of Thomas’s heart that Patton couldn’t hold. And it puts them at odds sometimes, sure, but it means they get each other, too. It means that, before Virgil decided he needed to be scarier than his fears, they were close.

Patton doesn’t think Roman or Logan have such direct foils, or if they ever did Virgil’s taken over that role completely. He menaces particularly hard at new ideas he doesn’t like, and overrides Logan in a way that Patton and Roman can’t when he’s on a rant. Optimism doesn’t quite have the heart-stopping (or in this case, brain-stopping) immediacy of fear.

Patton is pretty sure there were some other darker sides that did that when they were younger and figuring out how they fit together, before Virgil decided to be the one shadow in their closet. But then Virgil left the front of the mind and decided to live in the dark, and he’s the only one from that corner who bothers to show up unasked for. And it makes Patton very happy that he still visits! His very favorite thing that goes bump in the night is pretty much guaranteed to drop by at some point, no matter what!

Well, until he tried to disappear the other week, but they’re all working on accepting him now! Virgil’s around even more, and it’s great!

But the fact remains that, however irrationally, Patton maybe feels a little…responsible, for Virgil. Just, he feels better when he can see his scared little fluffball is doing okay, right? Because Virgil isn’t a part of him (anymore?), but he could have been. And he doesn’t want to see him take on all the pain of being the fluttery scared bits while Patton gets to do all the loving and the happiness.

So really, he’s kind of happy when the dark circles under Virgil’s eyes get lighter, as he stops getting stuck on preemtive defeat and starts saying ‘h*** with it’ and really trying where before he would have gone straight to panic. Heck, he’s thrilled! He’s never been more proud!

And when Virgil comes to him for help, he’s not entirely surprised. Change is scary, and the least he can do is reassure his darker half on his way to happiness!

He opens his door to the soft knock he hears late at night and Virgil’s there, looking at his feet and hunched in on himself like he hasn’t been in a while, eye circles lighter than they used to be but darker than they’ve been since he’s been accepted. As soon as the door unlatches, Virgil jumps, glancing around, looking at Patton with big, wary eyes. And, well, if he knows Anxiety, he knows what to do. He’s gotta be scared with all the changes he’s going through, but Patton knows he can handle it! All he needs is a little dadly encouragement!

“Patton,” Virgil says.

“Virgil!” he replies, stepping back and sweeping an invitation in.

Virgil looks warily at him, the room, the hall. He fidgets at his sleeves. He shrinks away from the doorway.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It—no, it does matter, I just—I don’t know,” he whines, picking at his hoodie. “It’s, there’s…have you noticed…? Wait, close the door. The last thing I need is Logan doing a science experiment on me.”

Once inside, Virgil hovers awkwardly, lacking any non-chair spaces to sit on. Patton waves up a stool for him, because he likes to feel tall.

Well, he liked to when they were younger. And he’s always hovering near the stairs during videos. But that might be because he wants to be near Logan?

Patton makes another stool for himself and spins on it.

“Wow, Virgil, look at this! We’re spinny!” he pushes Virgil’s knee to demonstrate and then they’re both spinning, drawing a reluctant chuckle out of Virgil before he reaches out to brake them.

“That’s, uh, that’s…great, Patton.” He’s grinning like he can’t help himself. Mission success. Patton keeps his victory dance mostly contained. “I did have a…a real question, though. I was just, I didn’t really notice before, but I was walking by the mirror, you know, and I just, can I ask you a question?”

He seems to center himself and replaces the nerves with a sullen glare. “Not that it matters what you think. It’s none of your business. I just need to know if you’ve noticed anything.”

“Well, that hurts my feelings a little, but I know you’re trying to express trust! And I’m very glad you trust me!” Patton exclaims, because it’s best to take what you can get with Virgil’s expressions of love. He’s not sure Anxiety has ever completely trusted anyone. Another price he pays for having all the fear and none of the faith in Thomas’s heart.

“Whatever,” Virgil mutters. “Are you gonna answer or not?”

“Oh, is that the question? Yes! I’m answering, that’s what I just did there,” Patton tells him. Virgil huffs and rolls his eyes, kicking his feet back and forth.

“I don’t know why I try. Look, I just need to know, have you been noticing anything…weird about me lately? I’ve been feeling really…just, I don’t—” he cuts himself off to stare at Patton suspiciously “—you aren’t gonna say anything, right? Like, you’re not gonna tell anyone?”

Proud as ever. Patton pats his knee. “Of course not, kiddo. It’s just you and me and the dog pillow.”

Virgil huffs a laugh. “If anyone is weird at me tomorrow, I’m coming after that dog pillow,” he says.

Patton desperately wants to defend Fido, but he’s seen Virgil’s kitty pillow. He’s secretly squishy past all the prickly bits. Definitely too squishy to hurt an innocent pillow.

He hugs Fido, just in case.

“I’ve just been, lately—I don’t _care_ ,” Virgil says. Patton opens his mouth to tell him how wrong he is, how deeply he does care and how Patton _knows_ he cares about all of them and Thomas, but Virgil waves a hand and keeps going. “I don’t—I’m not—look, it’s not like I was all terrified and helpless before, okay? Or anything. I was fine. I _am_ fine. But I feel like, now I’m, these days I do something that should make me anxious, and I just…don’t? I don’t care. And I know it’s, it’s stupid to be anxious about being less anxious, and I’m _trying_ to be less anxious so I should be happy, but it feels…it feels wrong, you know? Like I’m being—overwritten.”

Virgil is hunched almost double with how defensive he’s feeling. Patton waits a moment longer to see if that’s all, and sure enough, “I’m not supposed to not be anxious. I’ve been—I’ve been sleeping through the night, and I came here without freaking out, and yesterday I put—uh, something—away wrong, and you’re not supposed to leave it like that or it’s bad for the instr—the thing—but I didn’t care? I just said, hey, I can put it away right tomorrow and it won’t hurt anything. I never say that! And! And my eyeshadow is barely even dark anymore! I—you used to know me, kind of, just, am I being weird? Is something happening to me?”

Patton is going to be very upset if Virgil isn’t talking about a viola, because he’s been theorizing for years about Virgil’s secret instrument that he tries to hide the sheet music for and he refuses to be wrong. He can’t miss the name _and_ the instrument of his other half.

But. Acting weird. Virgil.

Virgil…always acts weird.

“Kiddo,” Patton says, “are you asking me if you’ve been less anxious lately?”

Virgil shrugs miserably.

“I don’t even know,” he groans. “I don’t know why I bothered asking. I should go.”

Patton grabs his wrist before he can hop off the stool.

“It’s okay if you’re worried about changing,” he says. “But, kiddo, I think you’re just starting to be happy.”

Virgil buries his free hand in his hair and clutches it in a way that looks painful. “But I’m—I’m not happy! I’m Anxiety! And if I’m not anxious anymore, then what am I? I just don’t care about anything anymore! And I don’t care enough to be scared about it! This isn’t what I’m supposed to be, Patty!”

He probably doesn’t even notice, but Patton’s heart melts when he uses their childhood nickname. No one else has ever called him Patty, except one or another of the darker sides, mockingly. No one’s used it sincerely since Virgil retreated the first time. Patton’s eyes fill.

“Verge,” he says, because he didn’t know Virgil’s name before he’d run into the dark, but he likes to think he’d have given him a nickname, too. He hops off his chair to stand in Virgil’s space. “Verge, it’s okay. Deep breaths, okay? Virgil, you don’t have to be scared to care about something. You know that, right? You’re not losing yourself. You’re not losing anything. You are so much more than your fear.”

Virgil gives up on looking at him and scrubs roughly at his face. “That’s stupid. This is stupid. I’m _Anxiety_.”

“You are not just Anxiety and you know it,” Patton scolds. “Thomas will always need his caution and common sense. And he’s been doing fine with his videos, right? He was terrible at those without you. If nothing else, that'll change if you lose yourself. _I’ll_ know if you lose yourself, kiddo.”

In his mind, he’s talking to a much younger Virgil, newly wary and acting oddly in what Patton hadn’t realized was a goodbye until it was too late. A Virgil who doesn’t know what he represents yet, who quietly admits to Patton that he doesn’t know if he’s the fear or the courage or the initiative or the paralysis.

The Virgil who shares around his duties as a darker side, who works in balance with others, until one day he doesn’t and the shadows consume him. Patton had thought his old friend was gone completely for the longest time. Had grieved and resented and pushed at the only dark side that presented himself to be pushed.

Until Virgil had started acting oddly, and had retreated to his room in the dark, and said they didn’t need Anxiety. It had taken so long for Patton to realize, but he’d known in that instant that his other half had been there all along. And now he’s so, so close to having him back, _really_ back, not crushing himself under his self-imposed responsibilities. He just needs to make him see that this isn’t a bad thing.

Virgil looks at him, on the proverbial threshold and teetering his feet out the door.

“I don’t know how to be anything else,” he says. “I’m—everything bad. I’ve been being everything bad because it’s, it’s a mess over there, Patty, you don’t even know. We’ve settled since puberty ended, but it was, someone would exist one day and then they wouldn’t, there’d be a side born and three days later he’s just gone, we all had to take over for everyone else, it didn’t even matter if they weren’t gone yet. I was so scared of what would happen to Thomas if I…so I just started _being_ everyone who disappeared, and now we’re not all coming and going anymore but I don’t know what _I_ was supposed to be. I don’t even know if I was Anxiety to begin with, Patty. I don’t know which parts are _me_.”

Patton…has no idea what he’s talking about.

“You’re saying…?” he starts, but he can’t even imagine it. Sides aren’t supposed to vanish wholesale.

Virgil shrugs, won’t meet his eyes. “Must have been dozens of us that just died one day or another. Not just dark sides, either. Curiosity’s job went to Logan, you took over for Wonder, I’m doing fucking _everything_ …so many of us just aren’t around anymore. A few more who still won’t leave their rooms. I couldn’t keep anyone _safe_ , Patton. I’m a protective instinct and I couldn’t protect anyone.”

Patton crushes Virgil into a tight hug. It’s the only thing he can do.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “We just thought…are you the only dark side left, Virgil? Is that why no one else comes around?”

This could be…awful. Catastrophic. No one has just _one_ active dark side. God, what would have happened if Virgil had gone ahead and stopped influencing them at all when he’d said he would? No wonder Thomas was so apathetic without him. Patton balls his fists in his other half’s sweater.

“I can feel your fear, Morality,” Virgil says.

“Well, of course you can! I didn’t know we could even disappear like that! I mean, maybe one or two as Thomas grows and changes, but half of us? More? How many of us are gone?” he thinks back to the dark sides he’s known. Virgil had had friends over there, hadn’t he? He’d talked about them way back when. Could they really all have disappeared?

“It’s not everyone,” Virgil offers, and Patton doesn’t know what to do with all the relief that hits him, but he squeezes as tight as he can. “I need to breathe, Patton. There’s still, there are still plenty of us over there. You’ve even seen some of them around, you know that. Some of ‘em haven’t been around as long, but we all do our jobs. We all decided not to tell you guys ‘cause…well, you know. Deceit. Anxiety. Some others. We aren’t really a sharing bunch. It was safer not to.”

Patton can hear the grimace in his voice, but he thinks he kind of understands. He doesn’t know what would happen if their collective personality had started falling apart. Bad enough if this is what’s been driving Virgil’s Anxiety off-kilter all these years. He’d hate to see what would happen if Roman had to try to cover for him, or, God forbid, Logan for Roman.

And even if they would’ve been unaffected…Roman had wanted Anxiety gone for the longest time. Knowing they had the chance to be free of a negative aspect of their personality forever…knowing they were disappearing anyway, so what’s one more, really?

It’s not that he doesn’t trust his fellow sides, but he can see where Virgil, the literal embodiment of paranoia, is coming from.

Patton shudders.

“Kiddo, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you all had to do that.” He squeezes one more time before backing out and looking Virgil in the eyes. Virgil shrugs awkwardly.

“I mean, it’s whatever. I’m just freaking out over nothing. I didn’t even mean to talk about all this. I just wanted to ask if I’ve been acting weird. Which, I mean, asked and answered, I guess. I haven’t talked about it since we agreed not to and here I am spilling my guts for no damn reason. Whatever. I’ll get out of your room now.” He squirms right out of Patton’s space, and Patton can’t force him to stay if he doesn’t want to.

He can reach out to him, though.

“You’re not gonna disappear,” he promises. “We need you and we want you around, kiddo. No one’s replacing you. We have time to sort everything else out.”

_I waited so long for you to come back_ , he doesn’t say _. I waited and eventually you came back to me_. If Virgil managed that, there’s no way he’s gonna give up now.

“You sound like you’re talking to Thomas. ‘We have time, you’re doing great.’ You gonna tell me about adultery now?” Virgil smirks, but lets the expression fall quickly in favor of scuffing his combat boots on the floor. “But, uh, thanks, I guess. I gotta go before your room makes me f***in’…what the f***.”

Patton grins. He loves his room's swear filter. He can’t help squeezing Virgil’s shoulders one more time before he can retreat, but then he lets go, for now. Virgil will come back.

“Language, baby darkling! Now, you may dye your hair and wear all those emo clothes and fight with Roman, but we use nice words in this room!” Virgil scoffs at him, but Patton keeps grinning. All of a sudden he’s even happier that Virgil stays closer to the forefront of the mind now.

“I tell you about a mass extinction event and you’re worried about language?” Virgil says wryly, and Patton winces. “Oh, s***. Too soon? Yeah, f***, that was probably too soon. Uh, there, there. Hug the dog pillow. I need to _breathe_ , Patton, I need lungs for that.”

He manages to replace himself in Patton’s surprise hug with Fido through some truly impressive ninja moves. Patton is so proud to know him. He’s just so _cool_. Such an awkward little _bean_.

“Look I’m just gonna, I’m gonna…go? Should I get…Princey? Logan? Do _not_ cry on this sweater,” Virgil says, backing slowly toward the door but sacrificing his hoodie to do so.

“I’m just so glad you’re okay,” Patton says, hugging Virgil’s sweater. Virgil looks at him like he’s speaking Greek.

“Yeah, I’m uh, I’m glad too, buddy. Just gonna go…be glad over there. Do you need anything? No? Greatokaythanksbye,” he says, making a quick escape. Patton lets him go, because he _will_ still be here tomorrow.

And he…Patton needs a minute.

God.

How many of them are gone? If Virgil had been one of them, he would have felt it. He would have, right? He’d come _this_ close to losing his mirror. Would he have ever known? Did Logan and Roman lose theirs?

He’ll talk to Virgil later, once Virgil’s had time to be skittish and regret being vulnerable and start relaxing again. He’ll get answers. They’ll talk about when Virgil decided to be dark in the first place. But for now…

_Mass extinction event_. God.

* * *

 

Logan is not sure what’s brought him to the kitchen. He doesn’t abide by intuition. He’s not particularly thirsty. He was sleeping soundly. But for some reason, he’s decided to get a glass of water. He gets as far as opening the cabinet for a glass, even.

One of the shadows moves.

Logan absolutely, categorically does _not_ scream.

“Logic,” hums Anxiety, slinking out of the dark and reaching past him for a glass. He prowls to the sink without ever turning his back to Logan. His eyes seem to glint in the darkness that embraces him.

“Anxiety,” Logan says. “What are you doing up? It’s late.”

Anxiety ignores him in favor of tipping the tap and filling the glass. Only once it’s full does he speak again.

“We disagree less than the others,” he says, creeping back up to Logan and past, to the freezer. Logan keeps his back to the counter and his eyes on Anxiety. He’s using his threatening persona again for a reason. He has to know Logan won’t believe it, having clearly seen past it. What is he doing? Logan wants his Sherlock hat. Ah, if only it were subtler.

While he’s figuring Virgil’s odd behavior out, though, the truth can’t hurt.

“While you can be…‘extra’…you tend towards a more realistic view than Patton or Roman, yes,” he says cautiously. Virgil smirks.

“You can say that again,” he says.

“While you can be—” Logan starts, but Virgil says, “No, that’s not what I—just, okay.”

He takes two ice cubes out of the freezer with his _hands_ , the heathen, and plops them into the glass, back to Logan for the first time in this brief conversation. Logan can hardly make out the edges of his t-shirt (where is his sweater?) from the shadows in the dark, but that may be the point of the whole outfit. He hears Virgil take a deep breath.

Anxiety turns around, grinning, and circles a little closer, setting the glass down with a _clink_.

“You’re not quite paranoid enough,” he says. “Kind of miss the mark with the emotional bits of fear. Don’t quite measure up.”

“…yes, there is a reason I’m _Logic_ and not _Anxiety_ ,” Logan concedes. “Can I help you?”

Anxiety shifts once more, a study in constant motion, before stilling completely, poised to strike, assessing Logan. His hair doesn’t move in the draft; his shoulders don’t move with breath. Even the condensation on the glass doesn’t drip down. Logan has the distinct feeling of being measured.

Well. Logan has never failed a test in his life. He stares evenly back at Anxiety for twenty long seconds.

Anxiety chuckles, and the spell is broken. Movement is once again possible.

“What the hell. Maybe you can,” Anxiety says, dragging the glass forward on the counter as he approaches. Logan does not back up. “Hell, maybe Patton’s even right. Maybe nothing’s going wrong. Miracles happen.”

He’s hunched, keeping his center of gravity low and walking on the balls of his feet. Still, he gives the impression of looming.

Something cold and wet touches Logan’s hand and he jumps half a foot. Anxiety barks a laugh and wraps Logan’s hand around the glass of icewater.

“Goodnight, Logic,” Anxiety murmurs, and disappears into the darkness.

Logan waits a moment more to ensure he’s left before letting out his breath, looking at the glass in his hand.

“He’s so fucking _extra_ ,” he tells it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D the boy!
> 
> Please do tell me what you think! Next chapter's gonna be a fun one. The title is _How I Wish the Argo had Never Reached the Land_ , and it's gonna be from Roman's POV!


	3. How I Wish the Argo had Never Reached the Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman makes breakfast. Then Roman quickly abandons breakfast because a hero's work is never done!
> 
> Virgil sweats it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is the badass opening line from Euripides's Medea. Not only does it match ~plot things~, it's Roman! Well, actually, ancient Greek. Close enough. And Logan's chapter/the intro was a Shakespeare quote (he claims to be a "better bard", what better bard is there than Shakespeare), and Patton's chapter is Bronte! See, multiple thematic levels. Please love me
> 
> Warnings for this chapter are in the bottom notes to avoid spoilers.

Roman is sluggish in the mornings. They all are. After Thomas wakes up, it takes a while for his personality to come online while he shuffles, zombie-like, through his morning. So he’s not especially noticing anything when he drags himself to the kitchen and cracks an egg or two on the frying pan.

Anxiety is usually either the first or last of them to wake up, so Roman isn’t surprised either when Patton drags himself in next, slightly more alert than normal but still groggy.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, leaning his entire bodyweight on Roman. Being a prince and a hero, Roman valiantly holds both of them up with some tricky balance maneuvers. He even keeps the eggs from burning in the process.

“Good morning! Are you ready for a fine, beautiful day?” he sings, flipping the eggs with a little pizzaz. They mostly end up on the pan again, it’s fine. Logic or Anxiety can clean up later.

“It’s gonna be great,” Patton agrees. “Hey, hey, you’re not gonna eat all of those, right? That’s a lot of eggs for one person. Sharing is caring, Roman.”

Roman sighs, but because he is honorable, he allows it. “Of course you can share my breakfast with me! I would like nothing better.”

Patton grins sunnily and scoops the eggs straight onto a plate that appears in his hand.

“Mrrphrmn!” he says, already filling himself. Roman tries hard not to grimace as he cracks some replacement eggs into the pan.

“’stht your water?” Patton asks through a gulp. Roman glances over to find a perfect, glistening glass of water on the counter. Was that his…? He doesn’t remember getting one. Ugh, _mornings_.

Patton’s already drunk most of it. If it was his before, it isn’t now.

Logic slumps into the kitchen a moment later, slow and distracted at the early hour of ten AM.

“That was my water,” he says, frowning. “I was talking to it earlier.”

Roman chuckles awkwardly. Sometimes Logan tries ‘jokes’ out. They’re still working on it.

“Ha! That was, funny! I guess. No, that was atrocious. I can’t be seen in public with you,” he professes. “But I can give you eggs! You poor, needy soul.”

Logan squints at him before rubbing his eyes behind his glasses, muttering something about ‘too early’ and ‘can’t deal with you right now.’

Patton beams. “That’s so kind of you, Roman! Especially because you can’t have mine.”

Roman looks, and yes, Morality is guarding his breakfast fiercely. But then he laughs.

“Juuust kidding, kiddo, of course you can have whatever you need. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all!” he says. Logan turns his squinting and muttering towards that corner of the kitchen. Roman has to take pity on him and serve up his eggs himself.

“Speaking of starting the day, where is Anxiety? Shouldn’t he be here to brood over salmonella, or deadlines? Provide some horrifyingly vague yet ominous statements about the future?” Roman asks, and winces.

That could have been maybe phrased a bit better. He really is trying to include Anxiety!  He’s doing his best! It’s just that he’s all, all muttery and broody and there’s not a lot to be positive about with that!

He turns around to face Patton’s disappointment, but by a minor miracle Patton is distracted by food. Roman definitely does not heave a sigh of relief at that. Logan and his judgey stare can make his own eggs next time.

Roman adds glasses to his egg smiley before giving it to him. It’s an egghead, see? Roman is very clever.

“I saw him last night,” Logan offers. “He was being…‘edgy.’”

“He was being perfect and beautiful just the way he is,” Patton corrects fiercely. “He is my scary emo child with a warm, beautiful heart!”

“If warm is what you want to call cold, hard, and shriveled,” Roman can’t help but say. Before Patton can correct him, he adds, “But in the right place! And doing his best! Just in a creepy, creepy way.”

“Now Roman,” Patton starts anyway, even though Roman thinks he did pretty good there, but he’s interrupted by a crash and a shout. Each of them flinch as a quick wave of

_—no no no oh god everything is awful I’ve done so bad I’m gonna die oh no oh no someone please—_

unmitigated fear passes through the room, sweeping in an undervisible wave outwards and beyond them, leaving everything just two inches to the right of where it should be.

Roman recovers first, of course. He is simply the most courageous!

“Anxiety?” he calls, because who else could be responsible? Anxiety _is_ fear. But there’s no response from Anxiety’s corner of the mind. A vague sense of presence, but he’s not answering summons.

He probably just can’t hear. His room is pretty far away, straddling the border between conscious and unconscious. It’s been drifting towards the light end recently, but nothing beats out most of your life being spent as the bad guy, probably.

“This is quite unusual,” Logan says (although is it, really? Anxiety’s kind of a come-and-go guy, even now he spends a lot of time wandering the back of the mind), peering down the hall. “I don’t see him anywhere. We should go to his room to see what happened.”

Roman grimaces. Virgil might be kind of okay sometimes, when he relaxes for like two seconds, but his room leaves something to be desired. Such as any form of comfort or happiness. Really, that whole part of the mind palace…

Patton lands on Logic’s side, though.

“Maybe we can just pop in for a second,” he says. “Just to check on him! That was pretty scary, I wanna make sure he’s okay. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to!”

Roman frowns. “No, I can stand up to whatever challenges Anxiety faces just as well as he can. Even his scary, twisty hallways. Very well, onwards!”

He brandishes his sword—Logan offers some irrelevant protests about unnecessary violence and Patton yelps—and leads the charge. Forwards into the dark!

Or, forwards into the increasingly faulty lighting. Anxiety’s whole hallway is all stuttering industrial lights and _literal torches_ and moving shadows. He’s a creepy dude! He’s just a creepy dude with a creepy, creepy, empty corner of the mind. No one even lives near him!

Great Odin’s beard, was that shadow laughing?

Roman comes across an intersection in the hall and pauses. This place is so twisty…was it a right at the first corner, and then the trapdoor, and then the two lefts? Ah, this is why they always get Thomas or Virgil to summon them here, it’s impossible to think straight!

“Uh, Roman? Why are we stopping?” Patton asks, looking around. “This isn’t where Virgil lives.”

“No, no, not to worry, I know where we’re going! I just…hmm…don’t know where we’re going,” Roman admits. “I don’t come here often! It’s all gloomy and depressing!”

Logan gives him a smarter-than-thou scoff and takes out a notebook.

“It’s…Anxiety’s room, let’s see…it changes places day to day and hour to hour, it is locked in an ever-changing labyrinth of eternal peril, finding it is a fool’s errand, you will be lost in the dark forever,” he reads, and snaps the book closed. “Admittedly, not optimal. But Virgil wrote this, and I think he just didn’t want me to come by his room and take my puzzle books back.”

“You let Virgil write in your books?” Roman gasps, betrayed. “You never let me write anything!”

Logan doesn’t roll his eyes, but Roman can feel the rolling-his-eyes energy. He knows.

“Last time I did you crossed out all of my observations about you and wrote in what I can only truthfully call propaganda,” he says.

“Now that is just not true! How dare you speak to the prince in such a way!” Roman is aghast. Agog. Ashocked. He can’t think of any other a-words.

Logan looks past him. “Patton? Where are you going?”

Sure enough, Morality is peering down the hall, squinting at the darkness.

“Do you think this is the way? I think this is the way,” he says, starting down it.

“Wait, Patton! Allow me to go first. After all, I can brave the dark better than anyone!” Roman struts down the hall Patton’s chosen, not because he needed directions, but because he believes in following your heart. Or, leading your heart but letting him pick the direction at hard intersections. He has time to workshop it, okay?

Logan says “Falsehood!” but that’s pretty much par for the course. Roman can’t expect every poor, blind side to appreciate his beauty and bravery.

Roman sees a door at the end of this hall, so maybe Patton did choose right. It would mean he’s cut out at least a half hour, sometimes more, of the aimless wandering Roman always has to do to find Anxiety.

But as soon as he gets closer, he is disappointed. There’s a bouquet at the door. Just another of Anxiety’s creepy dummy doors.

Roman doesn’t even know why he needs them. About half of them have a bouquet of flowers, mostly white ones, in a wall-hanging vase on the door, and they all have careful, hand-painted signs for personality traits that don’t have manifestations. Most of the signs aren’t even that good. Right now Roman is passing by a wobbly ‘Curiosity’ with what might be the night sky on the background of the sign.

Might be, because the design is just atrocious. Someone tried to connect the constellations and ended up just painting over half the stars, and there are errant brush strokes everywhere. Is that a border or did Virgil just dip the thing in paint at the edges and let it drip? Honestly, Roman doesn’t know what Anxiety was even trying to accomplish with these.

As always, he kicks the doorframe as he walks by. Why have such weird, morbid doors all over? Was he pretending to have friends? That’s just sad!

But this time, there is one thing different. The door, normally shut tight and latched, creaks slowly open.

By the talons of the raven! There _are_ rooms behind these doors! Roman reaches to push it the rest of the way open, but Patton grabs his wrist with surprising strength.

“I don’t think we should go in there,” he says.

“Why not? Haven’t you ever been…well...curious? I thought these were just fake doors!” Roman says, but Patton shakes his head.

“We shouldn’t disturb the room. If… _Virgil_ …wanted us in there, he’d have left the door open before.” Patton looks at the name plaque with terrible grief.

“Patton, are you implying that you think this room actually belongs to someone? We’ve never had a Curiosity,” Logan says. “I believe I’ve always played that role?”

Patton shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But there’s an empty room and flowers and I just think we shouldn’t disturb it. And if no one really lives there, there could be _spiders_.”

Roman furrows his brows. He wants to explore this brand new space, now that he knows it is a space and not a spooky, spooky fake door Virgil installed because he’s emo. But Patton looks pretty determined on this one…

Roman glances at the room. He wants to know. But…the room isn’t going anywhere, is it? Well, it is, because Virgil’s nightmare realm is impossible to navigate, but it’ll still be _somewhere_. Roman can track it down. And then he doesn’t have to disappoint Patton, and it’s the best of both worlds!

“Of course! We should be figuring out what’s up with Forrest Grump first. We can always ask him about it!” Roman announces, turning his back on the door with some difficulty and marching down the hall. He’ll be back in time to explore this mystery.

“I highly doubt Virgil would volunteer information about these doors,” Logan says dubiously. “Last time I asked him about it, he hissed at me and hid on top of the fridge for an hour.”

“Wait, is that why he was up there? I thought it was just because he’s allergic to the light of day,” Patton says. Roman snorts. It’s pretty rare these days for Morality to make a joke at Virgil’s expense, even a harmless one.

“While he dislikes being completely exposed or adjusting his eyes to bright lights, I don’t believe anyone can be said to be ‘allergic’ to sunlight,” Logan says. “Although there are certain conditions that cause one to sneeze when exposed to sudden changes in lighting, which could be interpreted as an allergy.”

“I am just blown away by how interesting that was, Pocket Protector,” Roman says, peeking at another door as they walk by it. This one, too, is unlatched, and it’s open already. _Fury_ , the placard reads, in bold red lettering. There’s a picture of a bull or…maybe a tree stump(?) next to the text. This door isn’t one of the ones with flowers.

The room, when Roman peers in, is completely trashed.

“By the grace of a prince’s face, what has happened here?” he exclaims, leaning through the doorway. “Anxiety really needs to learn to clean up once in a while!”

“Now, Roman—oh, that _is_ bad,” Patton says, peeking in over his shoulder. There’s at least one piece of broken furniture, the bedsheet is tangled on the floor, and broken glass is all over. And is that…? Yes, a hole’s been punched in the drywall. Two of them, actually, and a dent nearby. Roman can see inky nothing peeking through.

“Someone could hurt themselves, we really should take care of that,” Logan observes. “Perhaps it would be best to speak to Virgil about keeping it a little cleaner in the future? This does fall under his domain.”

Roman really, really wants to know what’s up with these rooms, and why Virgil gets an entire mansion when the rest of them only get the one room, but Patton is already frowning.

“We can talk to Virgil about it, but if he doesn’t wanna talk, we shouldn’t push him,” he says. “And we can’t talk to Virgil if we don’t find him first! Come on, let’s _go_!”

He puts a hand around Roman’s shoulder and physically moves him down the hall, and Logan protests but follows. None of them particularly want to be alone in this corner of the mind.

They pass by more doors on their search for Virgil. The one labeled _Selfishness_ is wide open, showing a potted plant just inside the door and a green and gold bedroom with the softest-looking pillows Roman has ever seen. This one does have a vase of flowers hanging on the door, and the name card is decorated with crudely-painted gems. The diamond is even in a diamond shape. And labeled. In pencil.

The wood isn’t even _varnished_ right. Downright shameful, is what that is.

 _Jealousy_ is right next to Selfishness, with a red-and-silver theme and a clean, empty room. No flowers in this one except the ones painted on the placard, some that Roman actually recognizes to be irises (the most royal of flowers, with connotations of valor, wisdom, and steadfast hope). That painting actually looks okay next to the illustrations they’ve seen so far. Again, door cracked open, room silent and empty.

 _Wonder_ , _Hate_ , _Obsession_ , and _Grief_ go by. The bouquets on each of them look fresh and seem to be full of the same kind of flowers as Curiosity and Selfishness’s, mostly a wide variety of white flowers framing a single dark rose. Each room is decorated with varying degrees of talent (which seem to cap out at mediocre), and each has no one in them, just that same potted plant just inside the door.

 _Ignorance_ doesn’t have the potted plant or the vase of flowers, but the room is brightly colored and full of stuffed animals. Still no one there.

Patton looks sadder and sadder with each room they pass, like these are real sides that really just…aren’t around? For some reason? Roman resolves to talk to Virgil about his choices in decorating. They can’t be depressing Patton every time he wants to visit Anxiety, especially if Patton’s decided to be his new best friend.

They do finally arrive at the three doors representing Virgil’s room, and this is what they expect:

Each time Roman has visited, the order of these three doors is different. Logan says there are only so many combinations of three that can happen, but Roman hasn’t found that limit yet.

Also, he doesn’t think Logan had in mind that they’re sometimes on the ceiling, or in the ground, or just hanging out completely unattached to a wall like some kind of…spooky ghost door. There’s literally no consistency! Well, except that they’re always together. So he orders the doors in his mind in order of how freaking scary they are.

Normally, the most edgy door is nearly impossible to see under all the chains and boards. Some of them are heavy, some of them are barely more than splinters or necklaces, and Roman swears he’s seen every board of a deconstructed chair there, but it looks like Virgil took every remotely solid thing he could find and nailed it to the doorframe.

It positively reeks of fear, and Roman has suspicions that that’s where Virgil keeps fears that Thomas isn’t ready to face yet.

Well, actually, it’s a 50/50 between that and some bizarre form of modern art about the oppression of fear or how no one wanted him around for forever. Roman is an appreciator of the arts, but not traditionally an appreciator of Virgil, so it’s entirely possible that this is what Punk’s Not Dead thinks is artistic expression. He will just never understand that guy.

The next edgiest door is the real door that actually leads to Virgil’s room. Roman has been fooled by nearly every fake door in these long and winding halls, but Virgil’s door is still somehow exactly what he would expect it to be. It’s also the only one with no placard, though Roman has seen what he suspects to be the back of one hanging from the inside of the door. The door itself is dark, and edgy, and has at least six locks on each side. They shock anyone’s hands except Virgil upon being picked. It’s a very rude system.

The third door, the one that actually looks and acts like a door (though this one, like the rest of the fakes, is always locked), is another dummy door. Roman has to assume it’s a little in-joke from Virgil to himself, because the placard reads ‘ _Vigilance_ ’ (hah, like Virgil), and under that, in tiny, neat letters, ‘ _Ant_ _on_ ’ (hah, like Anxiety, but ending with an -an or -on like the rest of them, it’s hilarious), and has a little painting of a knight standing at attention with a shield depicting a rising sun. Or a setting sun? They look exactly the same.

This door has a plethora of begonias in place of the more varied bouquets on the other doors. Roman didn’t recognize half the flowers in those, but this one just has begonias of every color and the dark red rose. The door itself is plain white with a shiny black handle, no decoration except for a dark window that doesn’t show you anything no matter how hard you look.

That’s what they’re expecting. That, even with the constant flux of Virgil’s realm, is always the same.

When they arrive, what they see is this:

The chained door is revealed, and no longer emanates terror. It’s all 80’s pastel patterns in bold, loud colors. There’s a shadow indicating that a placard once existed, but it’s been replaced with a piece of masking tape that says ‘ _JORDAN_ ’ in thick, messy sharpie. It’s still shut, but the chains and boards have disappeared completely. The only indication that they were ever there is the nailholes in the doorframe.

Virgil’s door looks exactly how it always does. It’s locked from the outside, and probably also from the inside if Virgil’s bothered to do up all six locks. There’s a sound coming from behind it like a heavy rainstorm, with intermittent crashes of thunder.

The ‘Vigilance’ door has no flowers today, and the door itself has turned entirely into a purple gradient. It looks kind of sunset-y, if one were to disregard that the placard’s sunset is painted in reds and oranges with nary a purple to be found. The clashing between door and placard offends Roman on a fundamental level. Can’t Virgil just pick one aesthetic and stick with it? And that’s not even mentioning the neon monstrosity next door.

“I must confess, I’ve never seen Virgil’s space look quite like this before,” Logan says, baffled as the rest of them. Patton is already knocking at the door.

“Virgil? Come on out, kiddo—is your door always this hot?” He rubs his knuckles on his cardigan. “Gee, how do you wear a sweater in this?”

“His door is hot?” Logan demands, already reaching out to feel it. He stiffens once he does. “Roman, I need water. A wet cloth, if possible. Patton, help me with the door.”

He doesn’t seem to be in the mood for messing around, so Roman conjures up a bunch of wet rags in buckets while Logic and Morality flip and fiddle with locks. Each of them flinch and hiss every time they touch the metal, even with Patton’s cardigan wrapped around their hands.

“You don’t think…” Roman starts, and Logan shoves the door open.

Immediately, all three of them have to duck a huge gout of flame.

That wasn’t a thunderstorm Roman was hearing from behind the door.

Anxiety’s entire room is on fire. Each corner is brighter than it’s ever been; the dark walls are warping and heat mirage covers the entire space. At a glance, Roman can see his bed burning strongly and the couch beginning to catch.

He doesn’t have time to assess the situation, though, because Virgil is lying on the floor surrounded by pieces of a broken chair. His eyes are open and they sluggishly meet Roman’s, but he isn’t moving.

Logan catches the back of his shirt before Roman can dash in to save him and shoves a wet cloth into his hands.

“For the smoke! Stay down!” he says, and Roman nods, bolting into the room as soon as he’s released. He breathes through the cloth, but the heat is blistering. There’s a low crash and a flurry of embers as Virgil’s bed collapses.

No time to save anything else. Roman scoops Virgil up and covers his whole face with the cloth, wincing at the steam and tucking him into his shoulder. He hopes Virgil can breathe. Logan is shouting something about “THREE MINUTES!” and Patton is holding onto the door as Roman barrels back into the hallway.

“Close it close it close it!” he shouts, and Patton slams it shut and starts pushing locks. Roman heaves in a deep breath, and another, and coughs.

“Virgil! Roman is he—?” Patton hovers over his shoulder and flutters his hands over both of them like he’s looking for injury but scared to touch. Roman turns so his back is against the wall and drags the sooty cloth off Virgil’s face.

“Anxiety? Virgil?” he asks.

Virgil blinks slowly up at him with an unreadable expression.

“Anxiety, I need to know what happened. Are you alright?” tries Logan. Virgil frowns vaguely. There’s a cut on his cheek and tacky blood running from under his hair.

“Can you understand me?” Logan asks. “I’m going to touch your head. I need you to tell me if anything hurts.”

Patton grabs one of Virgil’s hands and Virgil shifts his gaze.

“…hey, Patton,” he says.

Patton gives him a trembling smile. “Hi, Virgil.”

“Ask him where he’s hurt,” Logan hisses, prodding at Virgil’s forehead and shifting his bangs around. Virgil scowls. Something looks… _wrong_ about him. Roman can’t quite put his finger on it.

“I can hear you,” Virgil says.

Roman isn’t sure whether to sit him up or leave him in his lap. Normally Virgil would be hissing and puffing up like an alley cat being surrounded like this. But what if he hurts him worse by moving? Probably best to keep him where Roman can hold on to him, just in case.

Logan pokes at Virgil’s temple and the frown turns into an outright scowl. Finally, Virgil looks like Virgil again. But still, just, Virgil a little wrong. Something is different. Something about the eyes…?

“Does that hurt? Can you tell me what day it is?” Logan asks. “Roman, hold…no, your hands are busy. Can you see clearly?”

Virgil just looks at him with vague distaste.

“Virgil?” Patton asks. Virgil’s brows furrow. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“Ugh,” says Virgil. “I guess. Figured out why I don’t care about stuff. Bastard’s been sneaky. Then he hit me with a chair.”

He seems more put out by this than anything.

“Well, that explains precisely nothing, Virgil, thank you for your help,” Roman tells him. “Care to explain the raging fire I just ran through to save your life? Or…actually, what happened to your eyeshadow?”

 _That’s_  what’s looking wrong! Virgil doesn’t have any eyeshadow at all! Does he even exist without his Look™?

Virgil glares up at him, finally shifting of his own volition. Logan protests and Roman tries to support him as he sits up against the wall.

“You’re not gonna leave me alone until I talk,” Virgil grumbles. “I just wanna go to sleep.”

“Absolutely not,” Logan tells him. “You are staying awake until we can finish checking for a concussion at the very least. Shouldn’t you be worrying right now? At all?”

Actually…Roman pokes at Virgil. Virgil glares at Roman. Isn’t he terrified of getting hurt? The word ‘concussion’ should be sending him into a panic.

“What’s wrong with you?” Roman asks.

“I _told_ you. _That_ fucker.” He nods across the hall at the neon door. “Can’t be scared for your life if you don’t care about anything. What a dick.”

Logan lifts his eyelids and peers into his eyes, tilts his head one way and another, and Virgil doesn’t stop him.

“Who is this villain?” Roman demands. “This…Jordan?”

Virgil shrugs. “Brother.”

Patton gasps. Roman might also gasp. What a plot twist! Even Logan pauses for a moment before returning to dabbing away blood from Virgil’s temple with one of the washcloths.

“You have a brother?” Roman asks. “You’ve never mentioned a brother before.”

Who could possibly be the brother of Anxiety? Actually, how would Anxiety…even have a brother? That isn’t really how it’s supposed to work.

“Meh,” Virgil says.

“You know, you really could be making this easier,” Roman tells him. He seems unmoved. Why does no one try to make life easier on the princes?

“I can talk. ‘smore’n most’f us can do when J’s…doing that…thing,” Virgil mumbles, making a halfhearted gesture with the hand not occupied by Patton. When Roman and Patton don’t agree, he says, “You know. The brain thing. Like when you were in my room. That one time.”

Logan finally stops mother-henning for a moment. “You mean you’re being influenced by another trait? One that usually prevents you from speaking?”

Virgil stares blankly at the wall. He makes half a humming noise.

“Kiddo? We need you to talk to us a little bit more,” Patton encourages. “Can you tell us what Jordan is?”

Roman can only think of one trait off the top of his head that keeps people from speaking, and right on cue, he hears footsteps pounding down the hall. He—carefully—dumps the rest of Virgil’s weight on the wall and draws his sword to defend.

The footsteps are heavy, sprinting. Clumsy. The runner rounds the corner and barely catches himself before running into the wall.

Skidding to a halt in front of their group, panting, is Deceit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** house fire, mild injury, Deceit doesn't do anything but he's mentioned and exists, mild atmospheric horror (does this...count as horror?) on par with what's been going on so far in the fic, apathy, locked doors. I think that's it? Is there anything else?
> 
> Thank you guys so much for the kind comments I've received. They really motivate me to keep writing!
> 
> Next chapter is titled The Companions of our Childhood.


	4. The Companions of Our Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When even Deceit is vaguely helpful, you know you're in trouble. Virgil should probably care about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote for this chapter is from Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_! The entire quote is: "The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain." It's also pretty relevant to next chapter, but next chapter is a Logan chapter and I don't think he'd like Frankenstein quite as much as Virgil does.
> 
>  **Warnings:** apathy, verbal conflict, something like passive suicidal ideation?, influence by one trait onto another

Skidding to a halt in front of their group, panting, is Deceit. He looks…rough, mostly. His makeup is streaked and his outfit disheveled, and he’s gasping like he’s run a marathon.

He takes one look at them—Virgil, covered in soot with a vague expression, his hair still smoking and his jacket missing; Logan, quickly getting ash all over himself too; Patton, frantic with worry and holding Virgil’s hand tight enough to hurt; and Roman, standing above them all, ready for a fight—and curses.

“Virgil we definitely don’t need you, nothing is wrong!” he says, and Virgil _should_ care, he _knows_ he should, but it just seems like so much…effort.

Like, yeah, this is the worst possible scenario, last time Jordan was around they lost a bunch of sides, but…ugh. Virgil wants a nap. He wants a nap that lasts the rest of his _life_.

“Back, villain!” Roman shouts, brandishing his samurai sword. Fuck, Virgil should probably do something about that, shouldn’t he. Would suck to have to take over Deceit’s job if Roman fucking decapitated him or some shit.

His limbs are _so_ heavy. He doesn’t want to move.

But.

Deceit looks at him with this expression he has, where he looks like he’s not a lying bastard for two seconds, and Virgil knows he’s gonna step up to plate. For better or for worse, he’s never been able to ignore genuine fear. Ah, fuck his job.

He doesn’t wanna stand up, so he just sinks out and rises back up between the two. He doesn’t particularly want to stay up, so he doesn’t bother. He collapses on Roman and Deceit grabs his arm.

“Fuck off, don’t touch me,” Virgil says.

Deceit glances at Jordan’s uncovered door, at all the locks done up on Virgil’s, at Virgil’s frankly kind of pathetic state, and Virgil’s pretty sure he’s put two and two together. Normally he’d feel really anxious about anyone seeing him like this, or about his room being all burnt up, or about any or all of the objectively awful things happening right now, but he mostly just feels, well.

He mostly just feels Depression. Apathy. Despair. Whatever the hell Jordan’s calling himself these days.

“He hasn’t already been here,” Deceit says. Virgil manages a nod.

“Got it in one, kidlet,” he says. He hasn’t called Deceit that for a long time. Probably not since Deceit turned out to be a treacherous bastard. “He see you?”

Deceit shivers. “No.”

Well. Virgil can manage a ghost of a smirk for that one. He would usually tap his temple, but, effort. “Told you. I might be bad, but there’s always worse.”

If Jordan’s met Deceit and Deceit’s still standing, he must have got away. Given how sweaty and exhausted he looks, he probably just booked it—Deceit’s not actually very strong, for all his powers are more objectively useful when conflicting with others. He can run away like no one else, though.

Roman’s kind of twitching for his sword. Huh, he must have disappeared it to catch Virgil. That was nice of him. Virgil kind of appreciates not being stabbed in the kidneys.

“Deceit’s not gonna pull anything,” Virgil tells him. “He’s here to ask for help. He can’t afford to make enemies.”

Normally he’d be freaking out about, like, what if he’s wrong about that or whatever, but. Tired. He can barely manage a seething resentment for Deceit as it is.

Speaking of.

“Hey, where’s the others?” he asks Deceit. Deceit seems to shrink in on himself a little, which is really all the answer he needs. Damn. Virgil’s gonna be really sad about that later, if he doesn’t die before shaking off Jordan’s influence. Which he will. Oh, Depression and Anxiety do _not_ mix well.

“I know what happened to them,” Deceit tells him. “I know where they are. I even know whether he found them or not. I didn’t just run away.”

Well. Virgil did always teach the newer sides the value of seeing something scary and immediately booking it. Most of the things Deceit does are bad and he hates them, but he can’t really blame the kid for this one.

“I think,” says Logan, “the two of you should explain what’s going on.”

Aw, fuck, right. There’s this all, too. He never even got to explain about Jordan to Patton. Virgil looks at Deceit. _He_ can make himself useful for once.

“I’m the best person to explain this,” Deceit says, holding out his hands. “I know what’s going on and I can communicate that easily with no misunderstandings.”

Virgil frowns at him. “ _Can_ you tell the truth right now?”

Normally what makes Deceit dangerous is that he can lie, but he can also tell the truth. It’s easy to fight when you know you’re being lied to, but when there’s no guarantee, that’s when Deceit thrives.

But when some shit goes down, yeah, Deceit can’t tell the truth. It takes energy to do that and Deceit does look pretty beat.

Hah. Deceit. Beat. That rhymes.

“I always tell the truth,” Deceit says, which pretty much answers that question. Virgil remembers helping him work out how to communicate when he can’t do anything but lie, and that’s one of the things they settled on to indicate what’s what.

Virgil’s life would be so much easier if he didn’t feel responsible for every lost bit of Thomas.

Lucky for him, right now he can feel fuck all.

“Well, looks like we’re fucked. Say your goodbyes,” Virgil says. Deceit lurches like he’s shot him, but hey, fuck that guy. Virgil’s done his time. He’s put more into getting Jordan gone than anyone. He’s _lost_ more getting Jordan gone than anyone. Deceit wasn’t around yet the first time, he doesn’t get it. He has no right to ask Virgil to kill his brother again.

The arm holding him up tightens and Virgil feels Roman take a breath to make some grand speech or some shit, but before he can Virgil’s world lurches as Deceit grabs him by the collar.

“It wasn’t your job to keep this from happening,” he hisses (hah, literally, because he's a snake), “you didn’t promise us! You aren’t supposed to be the one who can stop this! You didn’t say we were done disappearing! We’re all going to die and it’s _your fault!_ ”

Virgil…gets what he’s trying to do. Really, he does. If Virgil could get scared, or angry, or literally anything but depressed as shit, he’d be able to fight off Jordan’s influence. Depression slows things down, Anxiety speeds things up. It’s how he killed Jordan before, all those years ago. It’s how Jordan is killing him now.

Some people’s depression and anxiety work together to pull them under, but Virgil’s never worked that way. He wants Thomas to be happy. He wants Roman’s dreams realized, and lots of new experiences to interest Logan, and warm, supportive friendships for Patton. He even wants relative calm and self-respect for Fury, and a comfortable lifestyle maybe a _little_ better off than the people around them for Jealousy, and a hundred other things for each trait to be as happy as they can be.

He’s a _self-protective_ instinct. Each of the sides is part of the _self_. So _sue_ him.

But Jordan doesn’t want those things. Jordan wants to be the _only_. Virgil doesn’t understand it and he probably never will, but where before Jordan had calmed him down, around eight years old he’d started overriding him. Anxiety and Depression, fear and complacency, action and apathy—they’re supposed to balance each other out, make each other better. They didn’t have to be disorders if Jordan had just wanted what was best for Thomas.

But he didn’t. And Virgil saw that. And Virgil killed him.

He hadn’t even meant to. He’d been scared. Jordan kept disappearing other traits, and Patton had been next and Virgil couldn’t, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ let Thomas lose his Heart, and he’d just wanted Jordan to see things how Virgil saw them and he’d pushed all his fear and restlessness into Jordan to make him _understand_ and when he was done Jordan was just _gone_. And all the traits Jordan had squashed under his Depression were still gone.

In the ensuing instability they lost still more while they struggled with the whiplash from overwhelming Depression to overwhelming Anxiety. Virgil had been massively overactive and he knew it and it just scared him, which revved him up more. Jordan had been his Calm and without him he didn't know how to shut up and chill for two seconds. He’d barely been able to keep anyone alive until he’d created Vigilance.

Vigilance was supposed to be an extension of himself, a bit of him to keep an eye on Jordan’s door and the other traits, keep everyone who was still around alive and safe while Virgil struggled to fill the jobs of everyone they’d lost so far. And for a while, that had worked. But traits can’t just make other traits, and Thomas didn’t have anything to be vigilant _about_.

The day Vigilance had disappeared, Virgil had really thought that was it for him. Someone else would have to take over as Thomas’s predominant negative trait, because Virgil had made himself a copy and received a son, and that was his biggest mistake.

Grief had disappeared that night, too. Virgil’s pet theory is that he couldn’t exist when someone else was embodying more grief than he was.

After that, Anxiety had changed his name to Virgil. He was taking over the job of keeping ‘vigil’ over himself and over Jordan’s door. He’d let Anton’s empty door keep the name they’d shared and recreated himself from the ground up. He would be everything to everyone. _He_ would keep a constant watch on the empty rooms of the missing traits, _he_ would prevent anyone else from being lost, _he_ would keep Thomas from fucking anything up too badly in the real world, _he_ would teach the new traits how to stay alive. He would keep them all safe.

Then the shit with Deceit happened. Virgil changed course once again.

He stopped talking to the other dark traits. Stopped trying to take care of them. He couldn’t stop worrying about them because, whoops, he’d taken over Worry’s role three years ago. But he stopped trusting them. Started hanging out in the forefront of the mind, harassing the surviving lighter sides, who still had no idea what a shitshow the subconscious had been for the past six years.

He accepted Patton’s anger—he’d be mad too, if Patton had killed a side and disappeared for years—and Logan’s suspicion, and Roman’s animosity, because anything, _anything_ was better than sitting in his room all day surrounded by the graves of nearly everyone he’d ever loved.

But years had passed. He’d been stupid, and gotten complacent, and he’d let himself care about how none of the light sides wanted him around (except Patton. He has no idea why Patton warmed up to him). How Thomas didn’t want him around. They didn’t need to like him in order for him to do his job. It was better if he scared them, angered them, whatever it was he made them feel.

But he’d lost sight of that, and he’d decided maybe he _was_ too present, and he’d shut himself in his room to sulk about it, and he had _stopped being vigilant_.

And now Jordan’s back, somehow, and he’s gonna kill them all and Virgil can’t even blame him.

Because Jordan fucking overwrote his ability to blame people. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t just disappeared yet, like everyone else does when Jordan overrides them. Maybe because he’s stronger than Jordan, delicate as that strength is. Maybe because Thomas knows him by name and it’s taking a while for that to fade. Maybe Jordan just wanted him to live long enough to burn.

Deceit is scared as hell, he can tell. He should feel something about that. But he doesn’t, and Roman’s sword appears under the snake’s throat.

“Leave,” Roman snarls.

Deceit gives Virgil a long look and leaves. He does drop Virgil to the ground, which is too bad. Now Virgil’s lying all twisted and his foot hurts from being squished.

“He’s gonna die a horrible death now,” Virgil observes. “This sucks.”

He wants a nap.

Patton never lets him fade away when he should, though. What a guy, Morality.

“Virgil, I think we need to know what’s going on,” he says. Virgil opens one eye.

“Depression.”

“We don’t _have_ a Depression,” Logic protests. Virgil gestures vaguely at Jordan’s door.

“We _didn’t_ have a Depression. I killed him when we were like twelve. Then I kept him from coming back. Then I was stupid and he came back anyway. Now he’s pissy and we’re all gonna die and Thomas is gonna spend the rest of his life too depressed to get out of bed and it sucks.” He closes his eye. “Let me go back to sleep.”

His shoulder is jostled. Roman.

“We’re not going to just…roll over and die! Aren’t you supposed to be all about surviving, no matter what? Fight-or-flight, remember?” he demands. So passionate. He shouldn’t be wasting energy like that.

Virgil scrapes up every bit of feeling he can manage under the thick weight of despair and manages to roll his eyes. Roman’s teeth grind. That’s not an attractive habit.

“What, you think he’s gonna let the guy who killed him last time he went all murder spree just walk up and whack him again? Jordan’s smart, dumbass. If you’re gonna win a war, get rid of everyone who knows they’re fighting,” he sneers. “I figured I was just chilling out for once in my damn life, but hey, turns out he gave me Depression stronger than my Anxiety.”

“The eyeshadow you wear,” Logan realizes. Virgil raises his eyebrows. Is now really the time to be talking about makeup?

Roman’s looking too, though, and so is Patton. Anxiety should probably be feeling self-conscious.

“What.”

Well, it was a reasonable approximation. What will it take for them to leave him _alone_?

“Anxiety, the circles under your eyes—they’re darker the more anxious you feel, right? And when you exert influence over others, they appear on the afflicted individual,” Logan starts.

“I’m not a disease, you know,” Virgil says, and is ignored entirely. Why does he even bother?

Well, he is sort of a disease. A mental illness, to be precise. He wouldn’t have had to be if Jordan had just not been a massive douchebag about it and created a power imbalance that Anxiety can’t fix on his own, though. He could have been fucking…ambition, or something. Will to live. Survival instinct.

“Your eyeshadow has been getting lighter since the time you ceased all your functions during that video—would you agree that this is approximately how long Jordan has been influencing you?” Logan asks. Virgil is kind of surprised that they believe him about this whole thing. Mushy stuff or no, he hadn’t really thought they trusted him. He nods.

“Pretty sure he started getting in my brain then to keep me from, you know, worrying,” he says. “Normally it’s my job to keep an eye on things, but if I'm busy not caring, hey, suddenly it's way easier to sneak around.”

“And now it’s entirely gone, signaling that you’ve completely lost your influence, even over yourself,” Logan says. It sounds about right. “What I can’t figure out is why you’re even still here if…”

“Logan!” Patton gasps, defensive on his behalf.

“What? If he’s Anxiety, but he’s not Anxiety, what is he?” Logic protests. Princey says something too, but honestly, keeping up with that argument is too much work and he’s too tired.

Besides. Now that he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure he knows the answer to that.

Virgil turns his head with a tremendous effort to look at Vigilance’s door. The knight he’d painted all those years ago looks back at him. Jordan screwed with the door itself, but not the placard.

He turns his head to look down the hall, ignoring the heated debate going on over him. Virgil can’t do anything at all right now, but he can still, always keep watch.

And he’s started just in time to see the worst possible thing.

Jordan stands at the end of the hall, grinning carelessly, like he does. He’s wearing a white and gold sweater, the complete inverse of Virgil’s, and rainbow shutter-shades. Same obnoxious neon baseball cap. He probably still has fucking Heelys.

The three light sides are still arguing. They don’t know what’s coming. They’ve never even met Jordan before. They don’t stand a chance.

Virgil feels the tiniest frisson of fear.

And, well. Anxiety’s only ever needed the smallest foothold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the boy is back! :D
> 
> Please, please let me know if you've enjoyed this so far. It means a lot to me to know people read what I've written and I think I get better as a writer when y'all tell me which parts you like best.


	5. What Gives You Courage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a self-preservation instinct, Virgil does not have a lot of self-preservation.
> 
> Logan suffers one of Virgil's many, increasingly ill-advised backup plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahahahaha did I say this would have 4 chapters? I meant 5. Did I say 5 chapters? I meant 7. Did I sa
> 
> Save me.
> 
> This chapter's title is actually part of a two-part quote. The first half will be in chapter 6! Because I liked it better backwards. (guess who spent the last 4 hours searching for a title rip)

“I’m just saying, if we don’t know what’s keeping him alive we can’t—” Logan is cut off by Patton, who insists, “Don’t you talk about—” only to be spoken over by Roman, who says, “Whatever it is, I think it can wait until we’ve dealt with this Jordan guy! He sounds like bad news!”

“But we _can’t_ wait if Anxiety’s going to fade at any moment! We don’t know if—”

“He is _not_ just Anxiety! He is my _son_ and—”

“But you’re not actually a dad! Can we slay the villain and then argue semantics?”

Logan is going to bring them back on track—it’s not going to matter what else Anxiety is or isn’t if the first thing he is is dead—but he happens to glance at Virgil, who is doing his level best to pretend none of them are fighting to keep him alive.

Or at least, that’s what he _was_ doing.

Virgil hops to his feet with surprising dexterity given that he hasn’t moved more than half a foot on his own since they rescued him from his room. Immediately, Roman and Patton stop arguing, too.

Logan follows his eyes to the end of the hall Deceit left by.

Standing there, grinning, is…Virgil. Virgil, but wrong.

Logan is familiar with the uncanny valley effect. This is a phenomenon where something that is not meant to be real, such as a doll or a mask, achieves such a sense of realism as to evoke unease in viewers as their pattern recognition tells them one thing and Logic himself tells them another.

This Virgil who cannot be Virgil is making him uneasy.

He has Virgil’s face, or at least, what parts of it are unobscured match. Of course, they all have the same face, but there are differences. This is Virgil’s face on someone who is not Virgil.

He wears Virgil’s sweater, if the colors were inverted, and Virgil’s ‘skinny’ jeans are replaced with equivalent leggings in bright, vague colors. Virgil’s eyeshadow is replaced with bold but messy makeup which may have been slept in at least once, and the shutter shades are entirely offputting. For every aspect of Virgil, there is an answer in this new side.

But what’s most jarring is the slouch.

Jordan—and this must logically be Jordan—is standing still, grinning carelessly and leaning casually back against the wall. He isn’t standing up straight, but he still somehow seems to be ‘larger than life,’ as it were. This is not someone who struggles with confidence.

That, more than anything, reminds Logan of Virgil.

Specifically, it’s exactly how Virgil acts when he wants to frighten someone.

By the transitive property, if Virgil thinks this behavior is frightening, and this behavior is characteristic of Jordan, then Virgil must be frightened of Jordan.

If Logan’s theory is correct, Virgil doesn’t show it. Virgil’s grin stretches to match his brother’s. He slinks forward, entirely boneless and predatory, but tense. There is no sign of the apathy that consumed him only a moment ago.

“Jordan,” he croons. “You left me in my room to die, Jordan.”

Jordan holds for a moment more as Anxiety slides closer before his hands fly up over his head.

“It’s not me it’s not me it’s not me!” Deceit cries, losing his disguise like a second skin. Anxiety pauses, poised to strike.

For a moment, Logan really thinks this is the moment when Anxiety finally snaps and outright attacks Deceit. He hates him enough to do it, certainly. And fears him, though how deep that fear goes Logan couldn’t say.

But then he relaxes.

“I don’t owe you shit for that stunt, chicklet,” he warns Deceit, before turning around to sulk back to the group, completely ignoring the confrontation.

“You’re _welcome_!” says Deceit, trotting behind him. Logan had been suspicious of Deceit’s easy agreement to leave, given how scared he seemed to be of abandoning the relative safety of the group, but…he has to admit, he did not forsee this.

Sometimes, Logan has to acknowledge that Deceit is very, very clever. Breaking Jordan’s hold over Virgil by using his fear of Jordan himself…well, it’s not something Logan would have thought of.

And even if he had, Patton would never allow it, he realizes, as Patton does his very best to bundle Virgil into his arms and keep him there.

“Do not _ever_ do that to me again, Virgil Sanders!” he scolds now that Virgil is lucid enough to respond, combing through Virgil’s hair, smoothing down his t-shirt, fluttering over the cut on his temple. “Do you have any _idea_ how scared I was? Your room was on _fire_ and you didn’t think to call for help? And you’ve lived here with all these empty rooms, and I _know_ you aren’t letting anyone else take care of them! And you never even told us about a brother! Virgil Sanders you are in _so much trouble_ right now!”

Logan does not envy him.

Virgil squirms uncomfortably, but if wished to escape a worried Morality, he should have thought about that before getting his room set on fire. He does manage to catch Patton’s wrists momentarily.

“PATTON Patton Patton Patton just, just wait a second okay? I need to—look just wait like two seconds, okay? Okay,” Virgil says, actually managing to get multiple inches of distance from Patton before running into Roman, who has gotten his sword back and is staring suspiciously at Deceit.

Speaking of.

“You’re certain Deceit is not a threat?” Logan asks, and both Patton and Virgil turn to him. Virgil shrugs.

“Any other time? Sure. And I wouldn’t be caught dead alone with him.” Deceit pouts. Virgil is unmoved, and continues. “Right now, he can hide behind me in relative safety or he can take his chances with Jordan, and, well, I know what I’d choose.”

Patton puts an arm around Virgil’s shoulders and tucks him firmly into his side. Virgil allows it, twitching uncomfortably but paradoxically relaxing somewhat as well. There are some things about Anxiety that Logan will never understand.

“You still haven’t explained why this conflict exists in the first place,” Logan points out. “This Jordan—Depression—is your brother? And you…killed him? For some reason? And now he’s trying to kill you?”

Virgil smirks gratefully. He has a very expressive face, does Virgil. Logan is still trying to figure out how to consistently convey even one expression.

“Sort of. Less ‘he’s trying to kill me’ and more ‘he’s trying to kill literally everyone.’” Virgil flicks his wrist and his door flies open, flattens his hand and the inferno inside extinguishes. He starts rummaging through the charred remains of his home. “When we were like, eight, probably, J figured out he and I can influence other sides more than you can influence us, right? And if we do, something… _happens_. Corruption first, and then they get erased. Boom, you’re dead.”

He stops shuffling to give the group of them finger guns. That’s…horrifying.

Virgil misinterprets their horror, because of course he does.

“Look, _I_ didn’t do that shit, okay? I didn’t want to be a _douchebag_ about it. But Jordan got it in his head that he could be the _only_ trait, be in charge and shit. Sides started disappearing.” He shuffles through the wreckage and refuses to look at them. “’ventually I figured out it wasn’t an accident. Figured out who he was going for next and waited outside their door for him. I was just gonna talk, okay?”

He grabs a book of some sort from the wreckage of his desk, flips through it, and scowls. Glances back at the rest of them.

Logan can only imagine what they all look like. Deceit is the only one not gaping. How much does he know?

“When you were talking about all those sides disappearing…” Patton starts, and Logan spares him a glance. Does _he_ know something? Just how many people have known about this without telling Logan, the literal embodiment of rational problem solving?

“Got it in one. Jordan killed off a whole bunch of us. Took me four years to get off my ass about it, and by then the dark sides were next to wiped out,” Virgil says. He’s trying hard not to emote, which Logan appreciates, but it’s objectively horrifying to hear him talking about mass murder so flatly. “Once I killed him back, I moved in. Took over. Shut up his door and kept an eye out.”

He jerks a thumb at Deceit before flipping through another charred book. “This one and some others appeared eventually, started filling up gaps. We aren’t balanced but we’re not completely crazy, either.”

He scowls and shifts his weight, and then says all in a rush, “Then I was a fucking dumbass and now Jordan’s back on his funtime murder tour of Thomas’s subconscious.”

“And…what Deceit was looking like just now, that’s what Jordan looks like?” Patton asks, wisely leaving the subject of blame out of the conversation. Virgil glances at Deceit.

“He looks nothing like that,” Deceit says. “I’m terrible at impressions.”

He’s not even preening, just glancing warily between Roman and the hallway. He doesn’t move away, though. Better the devil you know, perhaps.

“You absolutely are,” Virgil smirks. “Hey, Logan, catch.”

He tosses an ashy notebook to Logan, and because Logan is very smart and quick on his feet, it doesn’t hit him in the face and deposit unlikely amounts of soot on his tie. While he’s dreaming, none of this is happening and also Thomas is going to get a Doctorate.

Is that what it feels like to be Roman? Logan doesn’t think he likes it. So after being hit in the face by a book, which is the actual thing that happened, he catches it.

“What is this?” he asks, carefully brushing some of the ash off of the cover. It’s difficult to tell what’s ash and what’s badly singed paper.

“Instructions on not being a clueless moron,” Virgil says. “You remember what we talked about the other night?”

Logan thinks.

“We’ve had many recent conversations at times that could be considered night,” he says. “Am I to assume you’re talking about the one when you told me I am not paranoid enough?”

“Yep…yep, exactly. You’re great at this,” Virgil says. He pauses for a moment.

Still standing in the doorway, between his destroyed room and the long hallway of empty doors, Virgil surveys his surroundings.

The hallway is long and the lighting is faulty; perhaps less out of an aesthetic choice and more because one side alone is maintaining space meant to be filled by at least a dozen. Deceit, Roman, Patton, and Logan are in the hall, each keeping an eye out for danger and an eye on Virgil, their only hope for a coherent explanation. Virgil's home has been completely burnt out.

Virgil kneels. Drags his thumb through the ash that used to be his carpet, and grins viciously at it.

Rising to his feet, he smudges it beneath his eyes. Anxiety is back.

“Well, Logic, you’re just gonna have to go for some on-the-job training,” he says, manifesting an eyeshadow palette of only black. Logan is about to ask what the point of using the ashes of his destroyed home was if he was just gonna create his makeup anyway when Deceit beats him to it.

He really doesn’t like that guy.

“Conjuring makeup is a great use of resources right now,” Deceit says. “You definitely won’t need that energy in the next, say, hour or so.”

“How about shut up,” Virgil says. “I think that would be a great use of resources. Logan, stay still.”

He smudges his relatively clean, non-ashy thumb in the eyeshadow and Logan flinches his eyes shut automatically as Anxiety smears black under them.

Logan is beginning to have a suspicion about where this is going, but he must be wrong, because Anxiety can usually be relied on to at least be pragmatic and this is the stupidest, most illogical—

“Notebook has instructions. Deceit, if you’re a dick about this, I’m coming back to haunt you,” Virgil says. “If anyone else is still alive, I’ll—”

He starts to sink out, but is interrupted when Logan, Patton, and Roman each physically force him back up.

“I will absolutely not accept this behavior from you, Anxiety, we literally just talked about the importance of—”

“—going to defeat the evil sorcerer without the prince?!? I mean come _on_ , you can’t just—”

“—Virgil, no,” Patton says, and something in his voice silences the rest of them.

Virgil glances at him through his fringe.

“Patty, I gotta go,” he says. Odd. Logan didn’t think Patton allowed anyone to use that nickname.

Then again, he’s never known Anxiety to sound that gentle, either. He’s making a clear effort to smooth his customary defense mechanisms into something less hurtful. Perhaps Logan should keep this in mind for next time he’s stubborn, which will definitely happen, because he is not about to walk off and die.

“ _No_ ,” Patton says. “No, you don’t.”

Logan clears his throat. “If I may—”

“No, you may _not_ ,” Patton and Virgil say in eerie harmony. Logan steps back, though he does not let go of Anxiety’s collar (the most efficient position to grab for maximum leverage and the least ease of escape).

“Very well, carry on,” he says. Patton and Virgil turn back to one another.

“Look, this is literally my job, okay? Weren’t we all talking about letting me do my job in peace and not going all, ‘aah, Anxiety!’ literally every single time?” Virgil argues, and Patton fires back, “When we were talking about _being nervous_! Not wandering off to get _killed_!”

Virgil twists his arm and Patton lets go only in order to put his hands on his shoulders. Logan doesn’t think he’s seen Patton this upset in…maybe ever? It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

“Well wandering off to get killed is kind of what we _do_ in this side of the brain, if you hadn’t noticed all the empty rooms where our _family_ used to live! I’m not letting it happen again!” Virgil gestures violently and Logan winces.

“Wait! You don’t mean— _all_ of these doors…?” Roman looks between the Vigilance door and Virgil, but Virgil is not interrupting his argument for exposition.

“Perhaps better to let them fight it out and then explain,” Logan murmurs to Roman. They won’t get an explanation out of anyone if they can’t convince Virgil not to go on a suicide run first. And given how his last confrontation with Jordan ended with him lying face-down in his burning room and waiting for death, Logan is reasonably certain that this _would_ _be_ suicide. At least, if he goes alone.

“But—how could all these sides die and _none_ of us know? Shouldn’t we have noticed something?” Roman insists. In fact, Logan is surprised not to have seen any prior indications of this conflict, but the evidence presenting itself to him now is indisputable. Anxiety didn’t override himself and set his own room on fire.

And even if that wasn’t evidence enough, now that he thinks about it, this is also an explanation Logan’s been waiting for for years of just a few things that don’t quite seem _right_ about the sides.

First of all, Logan has never been in anyone’s mind but Thomas’s, but he’s fairly certain most people have more sides to them than they do. Sides are supposed to be single-faceted expressions of one trait, but Logan himself represents multiple aspects related to logic—planning, self-care, and curiosity (oh God, Curiosity, this just became much more horrible than it used to be, he needs to know who used to live in that room) being some of them.

Roman should theoretically only represent fantasy and perhaps escapism under duress, but instead he makes for ego, ambition, valor, and self-expression, none of which are under the direct influence of imagination. Logan isn’t really sure _what_ Patton’s main function is anymore—Morality doesn’t really seem to cover all the things he does for them, in addition to taking care of the other sides.

And another thing—why are they capable of making and maintaining relationships with one another? Or more specifically, why can those relationships change without direct, intentional input from Thomas? By their very nature, they change year to year and even day to day. But why? Shouldn’t Logan always represent Logic, which can grow and become stronger but in its core remains the same? Why can he be convinced to agree with others even when what they want isn’t intrinsically _logical_?

If he has unknowingly taken on several roles, though, these discrepancies could be explained by different aspects of his own taking the fore. He is, of course, always logical. But if he thinks about it—really thinks about it—what is the logic in wanting Thomas to pursue more academic growth when he has a working job in a distinctly nonacademic field? Certainly, a sharper mind can help anyone regardless of individual job description, but that’s not the only thing Thomas could pursue to improve himself. Why does Logan want to learn more?

And, more relevant to the current situation—why is Anxiety so involved in Thomas’s daily life? Why did he present himself as hostile when he could have received the same results by admitting to his fear instead of attempting to intimidate the rest of them? If nothing else, the others are compassionate enough that they would have made an attempt to ease his mind, and being regarded as friendly might have made him more persuasive in crucial moments.

And why has he insisted on keeping close when decisions are made, even before his input was desired or accepted? Virgil is not unaware of the negative aspects of overactive anxiety—he is, in fact, regularly anxious about the idea of being too anxious. But the one time he tried stepping back, it was not in moderation; he’d disappeared entirely. Why the extremes?

Logan can conclude that it’s fair to say, at least for himself, that he has expanded his role to take over for Curiosity. He wonders what his predecessor was like. For that matter, how—

“We have PLENTY OF TIME and this will REALLY MATTER when we’re all dead in a couple of hours!” Deceit shouts over all of them.

There’s a moment of silence as they all look at him. He keeps darting his eyes around, trying to watch both ends of the hall and all of them, poised to run at any moment. Logan doesn’t think he’s ever seen Deceit look properly frightened.

Virgil huffs. “Look, I am _trying_ to _deal_ with this whole…situation! But if Dad Guy Extraordinaire doesn’t let me go do my _literal job_ —”

“I know you’re trying to hurt my feelings so I’ll let go of you but I _love you_ and I will never let you go—”

“—whoa, hey, let’s tone it down, I’m all about love in all of its beautiful forms but that’s a little—”

“Anxiety will go do what he needs to do, Patton will go to support him, Roman and I will remain here, and you can decide whether you want Deceit or not,” Logan announces.

Each warring side stares at him now.

“What?” Roman says. “If they’re off to fight someone, don’t you think they should take me, the _literal prince_?”

He gestures to himself and Virgil rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, shouldn’t we take the personification of hope to tango with the personification of despair, that can’t go wrong,” he says. “I bet that sword you’ve got will come in handy, too. Jordan never turns your weapons against you.”

“Now is not the time for sarcasm, Virgil,” Logan says. Roman makes a face at Virgil. “But he is right. It would perhaps not be wise for you to conflict with Depression when hopes and dreams are often the first thing lost to a severe depressive episode. Not only that, but escapist fantasies, while helpful in moderation, can overwhelm a person’s will for change their situation in extreme circumstances.”

Roman scowls “I’m not an _escapist_ ,” he says, but he waves his hand and his sword disappears.

“Fine, then. If I’m not going to be involved in this epic battle to the death, why does Patton get to go? He’s about the least threatening thing I’ve ever seen,” Roman pouts.

“You don't need to be rude,” Virgil says automatically, and then, “wait, why _does_ Patton get to go?”

“That’s purely for the sake of efficiency,” Logan says. “He won’t allow you to go without him, so we may as well cut out the argument in the meantime and accept the inevitable. And I will stay with Roman to ensure he doesn’t get any foolish ideas in his head, and to keep an eye on Thomas. We don’t know how this might affect him.”

That’s not the entire reason he’s staying behind and Deception, at least, knows it. If he’s not misinterpreting, Virgil is relaxing somewhat at the thought that he’ll be out of the direct confrontation.

The eyeshadow under his eyes itches. But someone does have to take responsibility for keeping Thomas motivated if worst comes to worst, and Logan doesn’t trust Deceit. He’ll stay back.

“I don’t like this,” Virgil says. Unsurprising. Virgil is literally a 'bad feeling.' “I did this whole thing by myself before. I can do it again. I know I can. I don’t know if I can do it while someone else is there. What if something goes wrong? This isn’t a good idea.”

“Be that as it may, you don’t have a choice in the matter,” Logan tells him plainly. “The longer you stay here arguing about it, the more likely it is that Jordan will return, and then the decision _and_ the element of surprise will be taken out of your hands. A serial killer nearly always returns to the scene of the crime within the first fourty-eight hours.”

Virgil gives him a look. “He’s not a…”

He gives Virgil a look right back.

“I guess he kind of is a serial killer,” Virgil admits. “Huh. Never thought about it like that. I always kinda went with lying, treacherous douchebag.”

Deceit, the only other person Virgil has referred to as a liar, traitor, or ‘douchebag,’ looks distinctly uncomfortable. He stays very quiet and still.

“See? Logan says I should come with. I’m coming with.” Patton keeps his hand firmly on Virgil’s shoulder. If Logan had not known him for quite so long, or if he hadn’t known how to read Virgil’s expression quite so well, he wouldn’t know how terrified he is to let go.

This is why Logan does not envy Patton. At the end of the day, he can always rationalize away or make a plan to work on things he’d prefer not to face. Even now, he isn’t afraid to make the executive decision that may send Virgil and Patton to their deaths (he isn’t. He does not feel any guilt or fear. Those are not constructive emotions and he only hurried up the decision that was going to happen anyway and he isn’t feeling anything about it) because he knows, rationally, that they will keep one another alive. Patton is always the first to defend Virgil, and Virgil would never allow harm to come to Patton.

Looking at the meticulously cared for bouquets lining the hall, Logan does not think about how Virgil wouldn’t have willingly allowed harm to come to any side. Or about how harm seems to have come anyway.

They’ll be fine. They both deal in emotions, positive and negative, that oppose apathy and depression. Passion can inspire hope and determination to overcome and fear can make a person do nearly anything. They can help each other. It’ll be fine.

Virgil makes a sound of frustration. “Fine! But just—be careful. I know I’m the one in charge of being careful, but…be careful.”

Patton agrees easily enough, though Logan has no faith that he will remain 'careful' if he perceives Virgil to be in danger. The lighter sides have never gone to physically fighting one another in order to resolve conflicts. Logan hopes he’ll take care of himself.

Virgil sighs and relaxes reluctantly. He points at Deceit.

“I don’t like you. You’re in charge of the dark sides if we don’t come back.” Short and sweet. There is no love lost between those two.

Deceit changes into Virgil and nods with the same sardonic smile. “I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m completely prepared to take over.”

“That’s fucking creepy, even for me,” Virgil says. “Roman, Logan, just…don’t fuck it up, okay? Don’t be a hero. You should be pretty safe i-in Vigilance’s room for a while.”

He gestures to the purple door next to his own, presumably belonging to a side fairly close to Virgil himself. Very close, if the crack in his voice is to be believed.

“I will guard our nerdy Nancy and that creepy snake until the threat is passed!” Roman says, brandishing his sword. Logan, the only one of them who seems to remember that he’s a rational adult, nods concisely.

“I believe in you. You’re going to win,” says Deceit. Logan would have thought he’s being sincere if not for the fact that he’d admitted that he’s too tired to tell the truth not five minutes ago, and he’s been burning energy on transformations since then. Logan will be surprised if Deceit manages to tell the truth within the next _week_.

Virgil seems to be of a mind with him, because he raises an eyebrow and flips a sarcastic salute.

“Thanks for the faith, kidlet,” he says. What is with that nickname? Deceit sneers reflexively on hearing it. Is it just to annoy him?

Either way, Deceit pushes past Logan and through the door to Vigilance’s room, grumbling in a way that is eerily familiar coming from Virgil’s face. He really does have a lot of the same mannerisms.

Something to think about when they’re not all in mortal peril.

Roman has already begun casing Vigilance’s room, which appears to be mostly taken up by a garden. He never was good at goodbyes. It falls to Logan to give the last word.

“Patton,” he says. Patton smiles at him, surprisingly at peace now that Virgil’s not fighting him. “Be careful.”

“I don’t need to be careful. I have Virgil!” he says with two thumbs up. Didn’t he promise he _would_ be careful two minutes ago? Logan revises his estimation that both of them will survive.

No, he doesn’t. That’s a horrible thing to think. They’ll be fine. Virgil is paranoid and protective enough for the both of them. He is. He’ll have to be.

Virgil taps the book that Logan is still holding. “Keep a hold on that. I started making them years ago in case I disappeared next—our stuff and our rooms don’t go when we do. It’s got everything you need if you aren’t a clueless moron about it.”

Logan has his doubts about whether his own and Virgil’s estimations of what he ‘needs’ align, but he can only hope Virgil wrote everything he knows. He probably did. What’s the point of a backup notebook for your entire life if it doesn’t have the information you would have acted on?

He holds it a little closer.

“I’ll keep it with me,” he promises. “Until you come back. Good luck, Virgil.”

Virgil huffs a laugh and presses something into his free hand. “I should be saying that to you.”

Logan glances down. It’s not very large, it’s rectangular, made of plastic, but he doesn’t look long enough to figure out what it is. There are more important things to look at while he still can.

“Good luck, Virgil,” Virgil says, and in an instant he’s gone, Patton with him.

Logan looks at his gift.

It’s a palette of eyeshadow. All of the colors are replaced with the exact same shade of black.

* * *

Logan does remember, a long time ago, when he knew Calm. Back when Anxiety was just Not Calm and they were all still figuring out what they were meant to be. He’d honestly liked Calm. Calm was charming, and witty, and he allowed for logical thinking and ways that Not Calm distinctly did not. And sure, he could be strange, and sometimes out of the corner of his eye Logan thought he might be _cruel_ , but the other sides found Logan to be bizarre and unfeeling, so what did it matter, anyway? Logic did not abide by intuition. Calm was nice. He kept Not Calm in check. He _liked_ Logan, even though _no one_ liked Logan.

He remembers his friend moving from ‘hey, why don’t we chill the fuck out,’ to ‘what’s the point? Why do you even exist? Why do we need _you_?’ when the other, more rambunctious sides acted up.

Logan had distanced himself. He reasoned that he didn’t understand the emotional sides, so why bother trying to make sense of this sudden shift; and besides, there was no rational reason to spend time with someone whose behavior was rapidly growing to make him uncomfortable. And besides _that_ , Patton was lonely because Not Calm never seemed to be around anymore. And Roman certainly needed someone to ground him in reality. Making new friends seemed…logical. He’d had all these excuses, all these _reasons_ , and they made so much _sense_ at the time.

Honestly, when the dark sides stopped appearing in the common space, he’d breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Now he didn’t have to avoid anyone, because they were all doing the work for him.

He wonders if Jordan would have killed him. Objectively.

Roman keeps pacing between rose bushes and rows of flowers, glancing at the door and swishing his sword. Deceit sits perfectly still in the corner, looking almost exactly like Virgil. Even the way he worries is the same. Logan wonders if Virgil once called him a friend, too.

He wonders when he’s supposed to give up and read the book. He wonders if there’s any point. He doesn’t calculate their chances of survival if Virgil and Patton die, because he just doesn’t have enough information.

Or, well, he does have enough information. It’s right in his hands, as soon as he decides to open it up and look. He should be reading it just for the strategic advantage, regardless of what happens with Patton and Virgil. Knowledge is power. Fearing that reading the book will somehow adversely affect the confrontation going on at this very moment is irrational and—

And paranoid.

Like what Virgil said to him just last night.

_You’re not quite paranoid enough._

_Kind of miss the mark with the emotional bits of fear. Don’t quite measure up._

He’ll have to tell Virgil later. Logan has never failed a test in his life. Of course he ‘measures up.’

He wishes he didn’t.

_Can I help you?_

_What the hell. Maybe you can._

Roman sits next to him. He must have gotten tired of prowling the room, swinging at the garden. Logan scoots a little closer to him.

He holds onto the eyeshadow. And they wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me just tell you, it means so much to me how many of you have been leaving such kind comments. I try to reply to all of them, so a little bit of the meta behind the story ends up in the comments section, but I just really want you to know it matters to me! Thank you all so much! I am barely coherent rn because finals and it's been a While since I've slept, but thank you all for reading!
> 
> Finally, **MANDATORY REST BREAK.** If you're binging this, do at least two of the following:  
>  Rest your eyes at least 15 seconds  
> Stretch  
> Walk a bit  
> Get food  
> Get a drink  
> And then I hope you continue to enjoy the fic!


	6. What Gives You Strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil's life is a series of unfortunate events. Patton is pissed about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while to get out! I had to drive cross-country and let me tell you, that takes it out of you. Phew. I live, though!
> 
>  **Warnings for this chapter:** Deeply unhealthy siblinghood, actual murder, grief, death of a son (who is questionably no longer a child but still a son), emotional abuse  
>  **Note about ages:** I imagine the sides are all mentally, physically, emotionally the same age, but sides that appeared more recently are considered 'younger' just based on experience.
> 
> And finally, this chapter goes out to Abby! I know you did amazing :) Check out her [tumblr](http://stella-scriptor.tumblr.com)! Also, she is responsible for the 'vaporwave and regret' line, possibly the best thing I have ever seen with my own two eyes.

Patton derails Virgil before he can bring them far. They both stumble into another twisting corner of the hall.

“I must be more messed up than I thought,” Virgil says, looking around them. “I meant to be…”

“No, I did that,” Patton tells him. “Before we go, I just wanted to talk a bit, okay?”

Virgil shifts. “I mean, now’s not a great time…”

“I just wanted to say that I am so darned proud of you,” Patton says. Virgil looks at him like he’s possibly contagious. “You made a big step telling everyone all that and I’m so proud that you trusted Logan and Roman with it. I know it’s hard for you. I just wanted to let you know that I see what you’re doing and I love you.”

Virgil attempts to squirm out of his skin, half-snarling tentatively like he does when he isn’t sure how to take a compliment. “I mean, it was kind of necessary with just, what’s going on. It wasn’t like I had a choice.”

Patton claps his shoulder tightly.

“I am even prouder of how hard you’re working right now. Even though it hurts. You’re doing so well,” he says.

“I’ve literally been doing this forever, Patton. I don’t know what the fuck you want from me,” Virgil snaps. That’s okay, he’s not comfortable with people loving and appreciating him. Patton will just have to keep doing it until he is.

Patton remembers what else he stopped for. “Oh! And I have something for you.”

He conjures it up with a thought and Virgil immediately loses the hostility. He reaches for it before stopping himself. His whole body is angled towards the bundle of cloth.

“I was gonna give it to you earlier. Here’s your sweater back, kiddo,” Patton says. The instant he extends it even a little, Virgil is snatching it up and holding it close. He takes a moment to just have it before shaking it out.

“Patton, I…” He puts if over his shoulders and finally meets Patton’s eyes. He quirks half a smirk, but his voice says it all when he breathes, “Thanks.”

“Anytime, kiddo. But let’s keep the complete immolation of all your worldly possessions to a one-time thing!” Patton suggests, and Virgil even blesses him with a laugh. Well, half of one, but that’s pretty good! That is pretty good.

He just wants Virgil to smile.

Unfortunately, Virgil is not a very smiley person. Which is fine! Patton loves him just the way he is. But at this particular moment, it would make Patton feel a lot better if Virgil would just make any indication at all that he has, just, anything to live for. Or that he thinks he’ll live. Or that he’d think it’s kind of okay if he does. Anything at all, Virgil.

“We’ll see, I guess,” Virgil says. “You never know.”

That isn’t the answer Patton wanted.

“I did have a question,” Virgil continues. “Are you, like…good?”

Patton frowns. “Am I good?”

“We’re kinda going out to kill my brother. Isn’t fratricide, like, wrong? Morally?” Virgil cringes preemptively. Patton shrugs.

“Nope! No problems here. Let’s get this show on the road!” he says, you know, like a liar.

Virgil buys it approximately not at all, because he’s adorably suspicious. Also correct, in this one circumstance. But normally he’s just a paranoid young man.

Patton keeps smiling.

“We’re literally going to go murder my brother in cold blood. I am personally planning on walking up and touching his face and thinking bad thoughts at him until he dies,” Virgil clarifies. Patton did not know it was that easy.

Actually, that’s pretty terrifying. Is that just a Virgil thing or can they all be killed with just…bad thoughts? That is, that is not an idea that Patton loves. It’s not his favorite thing. No, sir.

To distract from his growing concern, Patton says, “That’s dark and scary but I trust you to do what’s right!”

Virgil keeps giving him that suspicious face, but he can’t push it forever. Virgil is actually very conscientious when he isn’t trying to scare anyone. Eventually he narrows his eyes and shrugs.

“If you say so,” he says. “Jordan’s good with words. He can convince you there’s nothing to worry about at all right as he’s literally killing you. Just keep in mind something you care about, I guess. Anything. Don’t lose sight of what matters to you.”

He doesn’t look too confident, but Patton happens to have all of Virgil’s confidence, so that’s alright. Besides, he’s got all the cares he needs right in front of him, fidgeting awkwardly. And some more left in Vigilance’s room, besides.

“I’ll be okay, Virgil. We’ll be careful,” he says. Virgil huffs.

“Everyone’s careful. We need to be _alive_ at the end of this,” he insists. “You need to get back to Patton and Roman and—Deceit. They’re gonna need you after this.”

Patton does not like the little drift from ‘we’ to ‘you’ in that sentence. He frowns right back.

“And we’ll need you to tell us all about what’s going on,” he reminds Virgil. “I still barely know anything, kiddo. I’ll back you up, of _course_ , I trust you, but after this we’re still gonna need you around. You need to come back from this.”

Virgil shifts uncomfortably. He looks at the wall, at the cuffs of his sleeves, at the ground, at his shoulder.

He looks at Patton and smiles gently. Sincerely. He looks soft and genuine and Patton would not believe whatever he has to say if you paid him.

“Obviously,” Virgil lies. “My life is the best it’s ever been. You think I’m gonna let some punk who never left 2002 take that away from me? Please, Patton. You know me.”

Patton is not entirely sure, since he missed the video on it, but he thinks Virgil might have just used every type of lie in the book right there. He wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him until he just starts telling the truth so Patton can convince him he needs to live, damn it, but Virgil’s already taking him by the hand again.

Damn him for abusing Patton’s weakness for handholding.

“Come on, Patty. Let’s go. One more adventure.”

And then they’re somewhere else.

* * *

Anton is twelve and he has never been so scared.

He keeps his back pressed up tight against Patton’s door and hugs his knees. He itches at the black stuff under his eyes. It showed up earlier today and no matter how much he washes it off, it won’t leave. He can’t fix it and he doesn’t know what to do. He wants it to go away. He wants everything to go back to normal.

But he can’t not know what Jordan’s doing anymore.

Not when it’s Patton.

He scrubs at the black stuff some more.

There’s a scuff. A whizz. Heelys on carpet.

Jordan.

Anton has never been so scared.

His brother glides around the corner and comes to a stop. He’s two yards away. He’s smiling.

“Tony! I didn’t know you’d be here today!” Jordan says. Anton nods. He doesn’t know what else to do.

Jordan can carry the conversation by himself.

“Well, I was about to introduce myself to your friend Patton, there! It’s been more than a decade and we still haven’t met each other and that just doesn’t seem right, does it? Are you here to introduce us?” Jordan smiles warmly. He’s always so grounded. Anton is eternally flying off the handle one way or another. He can’t help it; he just gets so _excited_ about things!

But he’s not excited about this. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this way before about anything. He wants to go home to his and Jordan’s room and hide his face in their pillows and cry until Patton’s gone and this is all over. He wants Jordan to make him go away next. He doesn’t want to disappear. He doesn’t know what he wants.

He wants to be someone else.

“Is he home? I’d hate to have come to his place and he’s not even in. How creepy would that be, right? Tony?” Jordan keeps talking but Anton can’t listen to him anymore. He can’t ever listen to him. He doesn’t know if listening is how the other sides have disappeared or not, but Jordan has a way of talking until Anton and everyone else agrees with him. He makes a fight into not a fight and turns you around and suddenly you want exactly what he’s wanted from the start and you just don’t know why you ever disagreed with him.

“Jordan?” Anton’s voice cracks. It does that a lot, recently. He doesn’t talk a lot.

Jordan’s face becomes a mask of concern. Or does it? Maybe Anton is all wrong about this. Maybe he’s just being cruel, being suspicious of his very favorite person just because of a few unfortunately timed disappearances. Maybe he’s being possessive, and he just doesn’t like that Jordan is introducing himself to more sides, making more friends. Jordan has never needed anyone but Anton before.

Jordan’s hand falls on his shoulder and as he crouches to mirror Anton. He puts his weight on his heels wrong and they shoot out from under him, and Anton can only force out a crackling chuckle to harmonize with Jordan’s booming laugh. Jordan makes a silly face and he can breathe a little easier.

Jordan is so good to him. He’s the only one who understands Anton. He’s the only one who loves Anton. Who else would love him? All he is is Not Calm, he’s frenetic and too energetic and too hopeful and he riles everyone else up. He’s lucky to have Jordan to reel him in. Why is he risking throwing that away?

“Looks like I should be watching where I’m stepping!” Jordan jokes. Anton nods.

“You should be more careful,” he agrees. He does not move from Patton’s doorway, but he accepts Jordan’s hand and they pull each other up.

Well, they try. It only works if you’re both pulling evenly, and Jordan is getting stronger and stronger and Anton is doing less and less. Jordan pulls both of them up when they lose balance.

“So, you gonna make introductions, brother mine? You told Patton how cool I am yet?” Jordan gives him a cocky grin. Anton’s shoulders are shivering.

“I, I wanna—can—can we talk, first?” he stutters. He’s always stuttering. Why can’t he just get a sentence out like everyone else can?

“Y-y-y-yeah, we c-c-can,” Jordan teases. He doesn’t mean to hurt Anton’s feelings. It’s fine. “I always have time for you! Bros before, right?”

Anton nods. Of course. Brothers first.

“I, I wanted to ask, about, there, was, I mean, I was friends with, I, can, can you tell me, did you, I, I, Jordan,” Anton tries, and tries again, and tries again. Jordan gives him mercy.

“You wanna know if I saw what happened to Curiosity? I know you and him were buddies,” he says. Curiosity vanished two weeks ago. The disappearances are getting more frequent. Jordan is getting stronger.

It could be a coincidence. Somehow. There’s some way for that to be a coincidence.

All Anton can do is grip the bottom of Jordan’s hoodie and nod.

“I miss him.” The words come out without warning, and Anton can hardly believe they’re his, but it’s true. Curiosity was nice. He and Anton had a lot in common. He’d even said he’d talk to Logic so he and Anton wouldn’t butt heads so often. Anton would like to be friends with Logic. Jordan is friends with Logic.

Jordan is softening. Anton is relieved.

“Aw, Tony, I’m sorry. Of course you miss him, you thought he was your friend. But Tony, bro, he wasn’t good for you. Maybe this is for the best,” Jordan soothes. Anton grips his hoodie harder and shakes his head. He doesn’t want it to be for the best! He wants his friend back!

“Look at me, Tony. Shh, just look at me. Curiosity seemed nice, but he’s gone now. He left us.” Jordan never knew Curiosity. He’d never met him until the day he walked out of Anton’s room (to meet Jordan, he was going to meet Jordan and he never came back) and out of existence. How would Jordan know whether Curiosity was nice or not? It’s not fair.

Jordan tilts Anton’s chin up with his fingers and Anton tries to keep all the tears inside his eyes. Jordan hates it when he cries.

“Curiosity is gone. It’s okay now, we don’t need him. He was just distracting you with all those what-ifs, anyway. Now that he’s gone you can go back to what’s important,” Jordan says. His other hand rubs soothing circles into Anton’s shoulder.

“What—what’s more important than Curiosity? I like him,” Anton says. What could possibly be more important than his poor, dead friend?

Jordan smiles, always so gently.

“Family, of course,” he says. “Really, if you think about it, it’s a good thing he’s gone. Come on, Tony, what were you gonna do? Keep chasing pointless questions forever? You have a job to do, like everyone else. With me. We make each other better.”

 _Curiosity_ made Anton better.

He gasps in a breath around the tightness in his throat.

“I miss him,” he sobs. “I miss him! I want him back! I’m not happy he’s gone! He’s my friend and I love him and I _miss_ him!”

He brings one of his hands up to hide his eyes and he misses Jordan’s smile slipping into a scowl. He doesn’t miss when the soothing hands stiffen with irritation.

“Aren’t I good enough for you? I spend all my time calming you down when you freak out over stupid stuff like this. I can make other friends, too! But I don’t! Because my stupid little brother needs me! And now you’re crying about how some guy you barely know is dead? Come on, Tony. Grow up.” Jordan rolls his eyes and his fingers dig into Anton’s shoulder. Normally this is where Anton apologizes. This is where he’s supposed to be grateful for everything Jordan does for him, everything he sacrifices for his spastic twin who just can’t _calm down_ for two seconds going. He’s glad for his brother. He is. This is where he’s supposed to show it.

He feels like he’s choking. His face is wet. He doesn’t know how he has this many tears in his body.

“I just want my friend back,” he gasps through a sob. “I just—I just—”

He can’t go on. He doesn’t know how he can ever go on without Curiosity. Without any of the others. He can’t lose Patton, too. He can’t do this anymore.

He hits it.

Logic called it a threshold once. Anton has so many _feelings_ inside him and he just can’t contain them all and they just get taller and taller when Jordan isn’t around to make them be quiet and they just get bigger until they’re bigger than he is. And then they keep getting bigger until they’re _too big_. And then one feeling pushes all the other ones away and that’s the _only_ feeling. It’s his feelings threshold.

All he feels right now is…

He’s never felt this way before. He doesn’t have words for it. Words for it don’t exist at all, he’s sure. This is the biggest feeling. And he’s feeling a lot of it.

No more. No more like Curiosity, no more like Wonder, like Obsession, like anyone. No more. He won’t let it happen anymore.

“Tony?” Jordan asks. He looks a little off-balance. Anton has never seen him off-balance before. Not if it isn’t intentional. “…Tony, why are you looking at me like that?”

Anton lets go of his shirt. He hiccups in on last gulp of air and sniffles. He wipes his face.

Jordan takes a step back.

“Tony, stop it. Stop making that face. Stop it!” Tony doesn’t know what face he’s making. He can feel the black stuff under his eyes, but it doesn’t itch anymore.

 _Go go go go_ , he hears. _No more, no more, no more_.

Jordan stumbles. He reaches out to grab the wall.

“Tony, what are you doing? Back up. Tony, stop!” The black stuff is coming under Jordan’s eyes, too. Tony can feel it. It’s spreading onto him. It’s mold on a stone. But Tony is the mold.

“Y-you wouldn’t hurt me. You don’t want to hurt me. I’m your brother! What are you doing? Tony, stop it!” Jordan is afraid. Jordan has never been afraid. He’s clawing at the black stuff. _No more, no more, no more_.

Never again.

Jordan reaches the corner and falls as the wall ends. He scrabbles backwards on all fours. He’s breathing hard, as hard as Tony was crying. Tony is still crying. His tears are thick and black.

“Tony we can talk about this. Tony stop, stop please! Anton please!” Tony wants to. He doesn’t want to. He wants Jordan to go _away_. He wants to hide in their room until the sun goes away. He wants Jordan to go back to being how he was when they were kids. He wants…

He wants Curiosity.

He just wants his friend back.

Jordan’s back hits the opposite wall.

“Please, please stop, please no please—”

The black stuff goes over Jordan’s mouth.

Jordan’s eyes meet his.

The black stuff goes over Jordan’s throat.

Jordan sees him.

The black stuff goes over Jordan.

And it turns into dark, smoky glass,

and it shatters into fragments,

into ashes,

into nothing.

 _No more_.

* * *

Tony—he doesn’t go by Anton anymore—walks into his son’s room.

“Hey, Vigilance! Anton, kiddo, where are you? You’ll never believe what happened!” he calls.

The name has gone to a better person. The very best of him, in fact. He wonders every day how he could have created someone like Anton.

“Hey, you know that new dude, the guy who can’t tell the truth? He decided on a name! He’s Deceit!” he says, taking off his jean jacket and hanging it on the chair. Anton’ll get on him about leaving his stuff all over later. God, he loves that kid.

Speaking of.

“Anton? You busy? I know you’re not out partying,” he calls, peeking his head into the back of Anton’s room to check.

No one. That’s funny.

“Seriously kid, where are you? This isn’t funny.” He’d said he’d be in his room all day. He has to look after his garden. Where is he?

No, calm down. Calm down. Just because Tony is Anxiety doesn’t mean he has to jump to the worst possible outcome. Anton’s just busy or something. Maybe he’s making friends with the new sides, or checking in with the old ones, or something. Tony isn’t gonna police him for talking to people. That’s not who he is.

Still.

Just to soothe his nerves.

“Anton? I need you,” he calls, one more time. Anton has never once, in his two years of life, failed to come when Tony needs him.

Nothing.

“Anton,” he says. “Anton, sweetie, I need you to come out now.”

Nothing.

Nothing.

“Anton.”

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

“Anton!”

Nothing.

“Anton, Anton I, please come out, Anton please don’t scare me like this, kid please,” he begs. He’s not above begging for his son. He’s not above _anything_ for his son. _Please let him be okay_.

“Anton, Anton, Anton, sweetheart please come back, Anton, Anton please, Anton where are you, Anton, dearheart, Anton, my son, please,” he sobs. No one is answering. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Anton,” he whimpers. He leans his head against a flowerpot. His knees hurt on the tile floor. Anton wanted tile so he could keep his garden clean and pretty.

“Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton.”

There is a hand on his shoulder. It isn’t his son’s, so he doesn’t care.

“—like this for hours, at least. I don’t—”

“—seen Grief? I was—”

“Anton, Anton, Anton. Answer me. Please. Anton.”

“Tony, you need to get up.” He doesn’t care who’s speaking. It doesn’t matter. What do they know, anyway?

“Tony.”

They won’t leave him alone. Poking and prodding and pestering. He’s waiting for Anton, can’t they see? They need to leave him _alone_!

“Tony, you need to get up. You’re not scaring the others.”

He slaps the hand away.

“My _son_ is _dead_!”

He’s said it. Oh God, he’s said it. He’s said it. Oh, God.

“My…son,” he gasps, “is dead.”

“Tony—”

“My son is dead! He’s _dead_!”

“We haven’t lost people before—”

“They weren’t my son! My son—”

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

“…is dead.”

He did.

All he can do is stare at his hands.

There’s dirt on them. From the soil. From his son’s garden, which isn’t his son’s garden anymore, because his son is dead.

His son is dead.

“Tony.” The hand is back.

“No.” He can’t.

“Tony, it hasn’t been two days.”

“No. Don’t call me that.” He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve even a bastardization of the name he’s shared with Vigilance. He can’t hear that name ever again. That name is only for his son.

“…okay. What do you want to be called?”

 _Dad_.

“Virgil. My name is Virgil.”

Because he has to be both now. Just one more role to absorb.

_No more._

_My son is dead._

* * *

Meeting Jordan is…underwhelming, at first.

Patton was expecting something, maybe…eviler. Something he could hate and be done with.

No. Patton doesn’t believe in hate.

But this guy has torn their family to shreds. All those empty doors…

But Jordan is sitting at the kitchen table in what Patton has to assume to be the dark sides’ commons, holding a cup of coffee and scrolling through his phone.

He looks just the same as Deceit showed them. Cool, confident, poised, uncaring. Virgil’s polar opposite in every way.

Virgil’s hand is so tense it’s trembling in Patton’s.

Jordan looks up.

“Tony,” he says. He doesn’t say anything else.

“Depression,” Virgil returns.

Jordan raises his eyebrows. “Bringing out the hurtful nicknames, are we? I prefer Calm.”

“You haven’t been Calm since you killed your first side,” Virgil snarls, creeping forward and bringing Patton with him. They’re beginning to circle, because that is what Anxiety does when he’s frightened.

If you ignore color, they’re wearing the same hoodie. Patton can see the family resemblance.

This is awful.

“You ever come up with a name of your own or do you still just call yourself ‘not me?’” Jordan doesn’t get up or turn around, even as they come behind him. Virgil doesn’t stop in his blind spot, either. He changes direction when he hits the wall and keeps circling.

“Well, ‘not you’ seems like the best thing I could be,” Virgil sneers. “In fact, I think if we could all be a little less like you, a lot of problems would be solved.”

“Like if you could be someone who didn’t murder his own brother in cold blood?” Jordan flicks something on his phone, completely uninterested. Did they even have cell phones when he was alive?

Patton is not going to think about the cold blood or the fratricide. Jordan is lying, obviously. Virgil would never hurt a side of Thomas if he didn’t absolutely have to. He killed Jordan the first time just like he’s confronting him this time, as a last resort after everything else has failed.

“And you even brought someone along with you this time. What, two against one seemed like a better bet for slaughtering me again just after I got my second chance at life?” Virgil flinches at this one, and Jordan’s eyes flick up just in time to catch it. Patton _really_ doesn’t like him.

“You wanted to be introduced to Patton so bad,” Virgil rasps. If he were any more relaxed he’d be hissing right now, but Patton gets the sense that this is a battle he has to win on every front. Hissing, charming as it is, is not very persuasive.

Jordan does seem mildly surprised by that. He looks Patton up and down. Patton wants to tell him to keep his eyes to himself.

“So you’re Patton,” Jordan says, and he hums thoughtfully.

Virgil comes to a halt. He doesn’t seem to be breathing, anticipating what Jordan has to say.

“Not bad,” is his appraisal. Virgil relaxes.

Patton does not like that. Mark him down as not a fan of any part of that interaction that happened just now.

But Jordan isn’t done.

“I can see why you chose him over your own flesh and blood,” he continues. “Certainly, it was worth stabbing me in the back when I’d done nothing wrong, if you can be such close friends with Morality afterwards.”

Patton is pretty sure something in his hand just popped, but if holding on this tight is what’s keeping Virgil sane, that’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make. He squeezes back as best he can, though it really comes out as flexing his hand muscles in order to spare his bones.

“I—I didn’t—” Virgil stammers, and Patton can’t tell what he’s feeling, but it definitely isn’t good.

“It’s okay,” Patton murmurs to Virgil, and Virgil shoots him a despairing look. He can practically hear, _No, it isn’t! It’s not okay!_

“It’s alright,” he repeats, and hopes Virgil will believe it. He hopes he’s not lying.

Jordan scoots his chair out and stands with a huge stretch. His shutter shades fall from his forehead to his face. The same as Virgil. Completely opposite.

“Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Patton, but I think I need to talk to my brother for a minute. Family business,” he says. With two quick steps, he approaches, and Virgil freezes. Jordan takes his other hand.

Patton doesn’t let go. He’s not letting Virgil go again.

Virgil’s eyeshadow shouldn’t be this dark. It’s just ashes he put on his face. But his breathing is shallow and his eyes aren’t quite focused and his eyeshadow makes a thick band across his face. It mirrors Jordan’s stupid glasses.

“Virgil,” Patton murmurs. “Come back to me, kiddo.”

Virgil’s shoulders hitch. Jordan smirks at Patton.

Patton feels _rage_.

“Virgil, I need you!” he calls, and Virgil jerks back into the present. His breath is too harsh and he’s begun squeezing the living hell out of Patton’s hand again.

“I’m here. I’m here,” he gasps. “I’m here.”

“Great,” Jordan says. “Now why don’t you come over here, _Tony_? Don’t you wanna talk to me?”

“That’s not my name,” Virgil breathes. “I’m—I’m Virgil.”

Jordan rolls his eyes.

“That’s what you call yourself. Maybe. I—”

“Hey, I just met you,” Patton sings.

Jordan stares.

Virgil stares.

“Call Me Maybe? No? ‘cause he said…call yourself…maybe?” he offers. Virgil’s eyeshadow has receded to two separate markings again. This is good, this is progress.

“…anyway,” Jordan says. Hmm. He did die in…probably 2002? A little old for Call Me Maybe. Patton will have to pull some older source material.

“Virgil, if that’s what you want to be called now. Let’s talk. Brother to brother,” Jordan says. Virgil lets go of Patton’s hand.

Absolutely not.

Patton drapes his entire bodyweight over Virgil. Because he is a beautiful, beautiful young man, Virgil barely stumbles and immediately supports him.

“Patton,” he says.

“Virgil,” Patton says with his very most innocent smile. He is not letting Jordan take his other half away again. No. Never again.

“Patty, we’ll be in sight the whole time. We won’t leave the room. It’s okay,” Virgil says. Patton doesn’t budge. No siree.

“Trust me?” Virgil asks.

Damn him for pulling out the puppy eyes.

Patton glares at the triumphant _monster_ opposite him and reluctantly releases Virgil. No more than ten feet or he’s following them, he decides. Jordan isn’t taking Virgil away again.

Never again.

“Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” Jordan says to Virgil, dismissing Patton completely. Patton _fumes_. “I was worried you’d gotten worse without me. You always were overactive. I’m glad you’re not causing Thomas trouble.”

Virgil’s shoulders round out and hunch in. At least his returned hoodie gives him some substance.

“Fuck you,” he mutters.

“And you’ve smoothed out the stutter! You have no idea how proud I am, Tony, you really don’t. I’m so glad to see you so confident.” Jordan smiles warmly and Patton’s skin crawls. This isn’t family. This is wrong.

Virgil falters.

“I—I. Thanks? I thought—” He visibly pulls himself back together, standing up straight and slinking back into a more aggressive stance. “I had to. Since so many of us were _dead_.”

Jordan looks genuinely sorry. Patton hates him, hates him, hates him. He hates how Virgil sways towards him and away. He hates the uncertainty. This man hurt Virgil. He’s _playing_ with him. Patton _hates_ him.

He takes a deep breath and thinks of Logan and Roman and Virgil. His famILY. He loves them. He doesn’t believe in hate. Virgil’s history with his brother is sad, but Jordan is sick. Patton shouldn’t hate him. He doesn’t believe in hate.

Jordan puts his hand on Virgil’s shoulder and Virgil flinches and then _leans into it_.

Hate breeds hate. Anger leads to pain leads to more anger leads to more pain. Patton doesn’t believe in hate. He doesn’t hate. He doesn’t.

Jordan says something about how sorry he is. How unfortunate it is that so many of them have disappeared. How he wishes he could have done something about it, but isn’t that just how puberty goes?

“I forgive you for killing me, Tony. I know you were scared. I was scared, too. That’s why I wanted to meet so many sides, you know? I wanted to stop it. But I guess I never got the chance,” Jordan chuckles, jostles Virgil’s shoulder like they’re sharing an old joke. Virgil looks conflicted.

 _Never again_.

Patton begins moving forward. Jordan has both of them turned away from him. Like he’s not even there. Like his presence doesn’t matter in Virgil’s life.

Virgil is his other half and this _douchebag_ made of _vaporwave and regret_ is not dragging him down again.

“But I’m sure you figured something out, right? You would never have killed me without a good, solid plan. You’re too smart for that, right, Tony? Once you _murdered_ me, no one ever went missing again.” Jordan is still smiling. Virgil is looking smaller and smaller.

“I—I didn’t—but you—” he stutters, before huffing and shrugging Jordan’s hand off.

He’s getting frustrated, but not fast enough. This ends now. Patton won’t let Jordan hurt him again.

What kind of dad would he be, if he let a bully get away with making his kids feel small?

With murdering them and blaming Virgil for it?

No. He’d be no kind of dad at all. And Patton is nothing if not a _pater_.

Jordan doesn’t even see it coming.

Patton slaps his hand onto Jordan’s horrible inverted hoodie and _feels it_.

 _Never again, never again, you are never hurting my boy again. I want you gone. I want you gone forever. Never again_.

Jordan screams. Clean, clear rage lights through him. All of the love Patton can feel. All of the things he wants for Virgil, for himself, for all of them, for Thomas. All of the years and the sides Jordan has _taken_ from them. He would have taken Virgil. He could have taken Logan, or Roman, or Patton himself. Patton wants him _gone_.

So he is gone.

The light of love and fury shine through Patton’s handprint and through Jordan, through his shitty plastic sunglasses, through his wrong awful bad outfit, through his lying and his manipulating and through his soul. Virgil gasps but Patton can deal with that later. Patton can deal with everything later. This man made Virgil sign up to die, this man tried to kill Virgil, this man killed so many people, this man is _evil_.

_No more._

_My son could have died._

_Never again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patton is pretty mad, isn't he? He doesn't often get mad. Wonder why that is ::)
> 
> The full quote for this and the last chapter: Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
> 
> I had [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfNgm6L7_YQ) song stuck in my head this whole chapter. Not that it has anything to do with anything, but it sure was in there.


	7. Three Things at a Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those left behind, the worst part is the waiting.
> 
> For Virgil and Patton, the waiting is over, so it’s fine now, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? I've expanded how many chapters this fic is gonna have again? Yes. Please remember that my planning skills are those of a hand-knitted double-thickness fingerless glove accidentally sprayed by the sink and left out to dry. Given that, for all the planning that went into this overcomplicated thing, it is not in and of itself sentient, that means that I can't plan for shit. I am doing my best.
> 
> Deceit really wanted to have his say, okay? Y'all asked me what the deal was between him and Virgil and here it is.
> 
> This chapter's quote is from Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. Warnings at the bottom.

Virgil feels the pressure on his shoulders let up as Jordan’s arm dissolves.

Also, as Jordan’s person dissolves.

Jordan dissolves.

Virgil didn’t do that.

He turns.

Patton’s there. Face red. Breathing hard. Hand outstretched.

“You…killed my brother,” Virgil realizes.

He is…not sure how to feel about that.

“I killed your brother.” Patton also seems to be just now realizing this. “…fuck.”

All Virgil can think to say is, “I’m telling Thomas you swore.”

Patton looks at him. His cheeks are flushed. His kitty sweater is still wrapped around his shoulders like a hug and he just killed Virgil’s best/worst nightmare.

He blinks.

Virgil blinks back.

“Fuck,” Virgil agrees. Patton was absolutely right to say it. It was the right reaction to this fucking situation.

Patton snorts.

“Fuck,” Patton repeats. And then, stronger, “Fuck!”

Virgil can’t hold it in anymore. He bursts out laughing, doubles over with it, and Patton’s right there and they’re leaning on each other in the space where his brother used to be but isn’t anymore because Patton killed him, and they’re laughing so hard they’re choking with it, and Virgil says “Fuck!” and it sets Patton off all over again and all Virgil can do is hold on to him and shake and shake and heave in deep breaths.

Fuck, right? Just…fuck.

_Fuck_.

And then he isn’t laughing anymore, he’s sobbing and Patton is sobbing and they’re clutching at each other and _Patton just killed Virgil’s brother_.

“I’m sorry,” Patton gasps. “I—I don’t—I just couldn’t let him hurt you anymore.”

And Virgil shudders because no one has ever, ever acknowledged out loud that Jordan has hurt him before now and he _has_ , Jordan destroyed his ability to trust and took Virgil’s whole life when he died the first time and Virgil still misses him so much and it’s horrible. It’s just objectively awful and Virgil can’t even begin to understand—Virgil’s brother who loved him is also Virgil’s brother who would have killed him.

Why? What was so wrong with Virgil that Jordan decided killing everyone was a better idea than living with him? Why didn’t Jordan just talk to him? Whatever it was, they could have fixed it together.

They could have worked together.

“It’s not fair,” Virgil says.

Patton holds on tighter and nods and heaves in half-breaths through sobs. “’m sorry, I’m sorry kiddo, it isn’t fair, I’m sorry.”

“It—it isn’t—I wanted him to—I—” Virgil doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say but he doesn’t think he could live without Patton’s arms around his shoulders right now. He clutches at him as close as he can.

His whole family is dead, again. All except for Patton.

Nothing can ever happen to Patton.

Patton rubs his back up and down way too hard and gets his shoulder wet and he saved Virgil’s hoodie and Jordan is dead. Jordan was here and now he’s dead. He had a second chance and maybe he was gonna be better but now he never will because he’s dead.

Or maybe he’ll come back again. And Virgil knows, he knows if that happens he’ll have to kill him again.

He cries into Patton’s shoulder.

They just won. It’s supposed to be good now. The bad guy’s dead and everything should be okay.

None of this is okay.

* * *

Deceit stalks through Anton’s garden, still wearing Virgil’s face. He’s too tired to change back right now, and it maybe makes him feel a little better, possibly, to have one more part of Virgil close to him. No one has to know. He doesn’t care what the ‘light’ sides think about it. They’re probably too busy with themselves to notice anyone else, anyway. Like always.

He reaches into the hoodie pocket. It still has everything he was carrying before he shifted.

He fidgets with the button. Virgil would kill him if he used it.

Virgil would be alive to kill him if he used it.

_I’ll always be there to protect you. Just hit that button and no matter what, you’ll be safe._

_Even if you’re…?_

_Even if I’m dead and gone. I am always with you, kidlet. I swear to you. If you or Thomas get into trouble and it’s so big you can’t think what to do, just hit the big red panic button. I_ will _help you._

Technically, Deceit doesn’t even know it would summon Virgil. He’s never used it. And if it did, that means Morality would be left alone to die and Virgil would once again be irritatingly broken inside. And Depression would still be around. It would buy Virgil minutes of life before he wandered off to get killed again, and Deceit wouldn’t stop him, because he’s their best bet at surviving this. If it comes down to it, Deceit wants to live more than he wants Virgil to live. That’s just who he is as a person.

But he does want Virgil to live. Oh, does he want Virgil to live.

He stares at the button.

Pressing the button would be prolonging the inevitable. It wouldn’t help even remotely.

Deceit still wants very badly to press the button.

“Hey, what is that?” One of his current irritations asks him. Fuck off, Princey.

_It’s my consolation prize for playing second best to Virgil’s dead son._

“Nicked it off Anxiety while he was sleeping,” Deceit says. Princey furrows his brow and thinks about it. Don’t hurt yourself, you overstuffed caricature.

“So you…stole it from him while he’s awake…?” he guesses, and Deceit rolls his eyes. Logic is just staring at that _fucking_ eyeshadow and being about as useless as a broken telephone.

Deceit doesn’t understand why Virgil chose _him_ to be his successor.

“Got it in one. You’re _so_ smart, Roman. This is why everyone likes you best,” Deceit coos. He kicks a flowerpot as he paces past it.

“Hey!” Roman protests. Of course he does. He’s never even met Anton and he cares so fucking much.

Deceit sneers at him. Disgusting.

It’s not like Virgil’s sulking face is unusual in this room. Not like he practically fucking lives here all the time, like he never cares about anything else, like he isn’t _stupid_ and _selfish_ and—

Honestly, Deceit thought Virgil wouldn’t let him in here again.

There was a second there when he was sure Virgil would usher his precious _new_ family into safety and turn to Deceit and say, _No, not you. You can stay out here and die with me. Or better yet, alone. Snake_.

He kicks another pot, harder. He hurts his foot.

Of course, he wasn’t worth even that. Virgil didn’t waste the energy it would take to dismiss him.

_I don’t like you. That was creepy, even for me. Thanks for the faith, kidlet_. And gone.

Deceit even hates that _stupid_ fucking nickname.

Not like he’s any family of Virgil’s. Virgil’s made that pretty fucking clear.

Deceit sees _that_ shovel. He’s surprised Virgil kept it. He’s erased everything else Deceit’s ever touched in his shiny new life.

He picks it up.

Same hefty weight. Good for swinging, really gets some momentum going. Heavy enough to break these stupid flowerpots. Satisfying, too. Deceit loves the noise they make.

* * *

It’s the third anniversary of when Deceit chose the name of his role in the mindscape. His third (well, fourth, if you count the first) nameday. It’s Virgil’s nameday, too, but who knows how many years he’s been Anxiety. Longer than most of them have been around, certainly.

He can smell something sweet coming from the oven. _This year, this year!_ he tells himself. _Finally!_

He saunters into the kitchen and tries not to grin. This year. It’s been three years; this year it has to finally be about him. It has to, right? It’s his _nameday_.

Virgil is bent over a cake, painstakingly piping on the finishing touches. He’s such a perfectionist. But that’s okay, because it’s finally, finally all about Deceit! Finally, there’s time for him today! This year for sure. Virgil has to have remembered, right? He remembers all sorts of dates. He remembers this one.

“Terrible morning!” Deceit calls. “Are you ready for a bright and beau—”

Virgil turns from the cake.

He’s already crying. Been that way for a while, it seems. His trembling hands are on the piping bag full of yellow frosting.

Yellow is Deceit’s color.

But the cake reads _Anton_.

It’s not _fair_.

“Oh, um, Deceit,” Virgil makes a pathetic attempt at a smile. Deceit doesn’t know why he fucking bothers. It’s clear he doesn’t want to see Deceit. Doesn’t _care_ about him as much as he cares about his _stupid dead son_ , just like always. Every _fucking_ year.

Vigilance wasn’t even a real side.

Virgil says something as Deceit disappears, but he doesn’t care enough to listen. Why bother? It’s not like Virgil’s gonna say, what, happy nameday, Deceit? Happy anniversary of the most important day of your life? I’m glad you exist? I _love_ you?

The only people Virgil loves are dead people.

Dead people like _fucking_ Anton.

It isn’t fair.

Deceit was the one to come by every day while Virgil was curled over in Anton’s garden, just chanting his name. Deceit was the first one to come by when Fury yelled that something was wrong with Anxiety. Deceit was the one Virgil decided to give his panic button to, in case he didn’t make it. Deceit was the one Virgil trusted to replace him, worst come to worst.

But no. Virgil cares about his _real_ son.

His _dead, fake_ son that he created like a _science experiment_ and not Deceit who’s a real side and alive and here and it’s his nameday, damn it, can’t Virgil just look up this once? Can’t Virgil just look at him, just once, on his nameday?

Deceit appears in Anton’s room.

Full of stupid perfect flowers and not a hint of dust even though Vigilance has been dead for three years as of today, because Virgil’s always fucking here, cleaning, mourning, _loving_. He loves Anton dead more than he’s ever loved anyone alive.

Deceit doesn’t get the hype.

“You know, this is all your fucking fault,” he tells the dead ‘side.’ “Couldn’t you have waited one more day to die? Today is supposed to be _my_ day.”

Anton doesn’t respond, because he’s been dead for literal years. He’s been dead almost as long as Deceit’s been alive and he’s still all Virgil cares about.

Deceit kicks the nearest flowerpot.

It hurts his foot.

“I hate you,” he spits. “I could have done everything you ever did. Who did you even help, huh? No one. All you do is make people cry because you were stupid enough to get dead. We would have been better off without you.”

It doesn’t take as much effort as telling the truth usually does. The habitual drain on his energy has stopped and Deceit doesn’t know why. He’s telling the truth. Vigilance was fucking useless and the only reason anyone wanted him around is because Virgil thought he needed him.

“What does he know, anyway? He’s all in charge and shit and he just, all he did was survive.” He just killed some fuck Deceit’s never even met. No one but Deceit can even be sure he’s telling the truth, because Fury’s the only other one who was around then and he barely ever leaves his room. If Deceit couldn’t tell who’s lying and who isn’t, Virgil’s story would just be a bunch of words strung together. It might as well not be their history.

Deceit almost wishes it wasn’t. Maybe if Virgil wasn’t so busy being the hero he would have time for the rest of them.

But no, he wouldn’t. Because he’d spend it all on his _stupid dead son_.

“I _hate_ you!” Deceit shouts. He grabs a stem at random and tears it out of the dirt. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate both of you! I hate your stupid flowers and your fucking cake and I hate all of it and I—hate—you!”

He rips a delicate blossom to shreds and hurls it at the wall. It’s not heavy enough to go and it falls right back on him in little ribbons of flower confetti.

He can’t even throw these stupid flowers right.

Deceit’s eyes burn. He’s not going to cry. Everyone always cries over stupid Anton and Deceit’s not going to waste the energy.

This fucker couldn’t even die right, he had to sink his hooks into everyone’s hearts and drag them down with him. Deceit _hates_ him. If he were stronger, he would erase Vigilance entirely. No one would ever talk about him again, or how fucking kind or sweet or dedicated or fucking _whatever_ he was! Deceit doesn’t care how much of a precious _angel_ Anton used to be! He’s _dead_ now and Deceit is _alive_! Deceit is the one who’s still here! Deceit is the one they should care about, not stupid perfect Anton and his fucking smile and his stupid red-and-yellow theme, which, that’s Deceit’s color! Yellow is Deceit’s color! And Anton gets to keep it from beyond the grave!

Deceit sees a shovel.

Deceit has an idea.

Virgil is gonna be so mad. Virgil is gonna fucking kill him and he won’t be wrong to. He shouldn’t do this.

Virgil is gonna look at him for once.

That’s all it takes. Deceit yanks the shovel off the wall and stumbles. It’s heavier than he thought it was. Probably because fucking _Anton_ was so strong and smart and could hold it _perfectly_.

Well, Anton’s dead. Deceit knows how to use a shovel.

“I _hate_ _you_ ,” he snarls, and swings it as hard as he can.

The sound it makes as it hits one of the smaller vases on its stupid pedestal is perfect. Deceit had never realized how much he wanted to break every perfect fucking thing in this too-neat room until he gets started, but the vase flies off its stand in pieces and the crash is the best thing he’s ever heard. Those pretty flowers fall to the floor and Deceit marches right up to them and crushes the buds under his shoe. Just for good measure, he twists it and keeps crushing them until he can see stains and petal shreds under his shoe.

Not enough. This whole room needs to be crushed.

Someone needs to finally look at him. See _him_. Not matter what it takes, it’s gonna happen today.

Deceit gets to work.

* * *

He doesn’t know how long it’s been when he hears a shuffle at the door. His arms are trembling. He’s exhausted. But nothing he could possibly break is still whole and he really, actually feels a little better. Maybe better enough to get through this stupid day. Maybe he won’t even mind Virgil crying over Anton for a little longer. It’s part of the grieving process, right? Some day they’ll look back and Virgil will apologize for taking so long. Deceit can wait a little longer.

But then the door opens as he’s surveying the wreckage.

Deceit doesn’t turn around.

“Deceit? Kidlet…? I just wanted to say—”

He can _feel_ Virgil realizing what he’s done.

“I—I—what happened?” Virgil asks. His voice wavers. He always sounds so strong, except for today. Always on Deceit’s nameday. “Did someone…are you okay? Are you hurt? Tell me who did this.”

His voice gets closer as he hurries over and it’s soft and protective and it’s the best thing Deceit’s ever heard. Finally, someone is looking at _him_. Virgil cares about _him_ more than he cares about Anton’s stupid fucking room.

It is short-lived.

“Kidlet? I—what’s that you’re holding?” Virgil is close enough to see the shovel. It’s bent up. Deceit’s hands are blistering and covered in little cuts from splinters and shattered pottery. His shoes are beyond saving.

“Virgil,” he says. “I—”

“You didn’t,” Virgil breathes. “You—tell me you didn’t do this, kidlet. You didn’t—why would you do this?”

Deceit falters. Now that the righteous anger has dissipated, he feels kind of… “I’m sorry.”

Virgil looks at him like he doesn’t even know him.

“How could you?” he asks. “I don’t—how _could_ you?”

Deceit drops the handle and the shovel clatters to the ground. He holds up his hands and tries not to fidget too much—most people have tells when they lie, but Deceit has tells when he tells the truth.

“I was just—” he starts. Just what? Just trashing some dead guy’s room? Why did he think this was a good idea?

“You were just destroying my son’s room on the anniversary of his death? What the _hell_ , Deceit? What are you even doing here?” Virgil demands, stalking up to get in Deceit’s face. Deceit feels the barest inklings of fear.

Maybe he really fucked up here.

Virgil knows, because he is _made_ of fear, of course. He sighs and closes his eyes tight, making a visible effort to calm down.

“I didn’t mean to,” Deceit’s voice sounds small even to his own ears. “I was just visiting and I just…I was just so…”

Virgil holds a hand up.

“Save it, Deceit. I should’ve known to keep this place more secure. It’s my own fault for thinking you were better than this.” He looks over the room. Deceit feels his heart squeeze in his chest. Virgil hasn’t lifted a hand against him and it’s like the air was all punched out of him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because it’s all he can say. He is, though. He’s sorry for hurting Virgil.

He’s just…not sorry for wanting Anton to stop haunting them. He can’t be.

“No, you’re not sorry,” Virgil says tiredly, nudging a shard of vase with his foot. “It’s always something with you, isn’t it? I’ve _tried_ to be understanding. I thought, it’s hard to be new, adjusting can be rough. Every time I’ve found some excuse for you. And I’ve tried to fix it. But…Anton’s room? _Anton_? Really, Deceit?”

And it all comes back to Anton again. How perfect he was, how special he was, how much better than Deceit he was. And suddenly Deceit is right back to being furious.

“Yes, _Anton_! He’s the problem! He’s everything, isn’t he? Your whole life is wrapped up in this stupid _fake_!” he shouts, hands trembling in fists. “Isn’t it, Virgil? All you care about is your stupid fake son and he’s _dead_! He’s never coming back!”

Virgil snarls. “You take that back!”

Deceit won’t. He’s done hearing about that perfect _angel_ when all he’ll ever be is second best. He won’t ignore it anymore! “Take what back? That he was never real? That he was some shitty washed-out photocopy of you and now he’s not even that? You’re so in love with yourself that you can’t even realize that he was nothing! He’s _nothing_! He didn’t even have his own name!”

“He was my son!” Virgil shouts, and Deceit sees red.

“He wasn’t! He _was_ nothing and he _is_ nothing and he’s _gone_ , Virgil! I don’t know how you still refuse to see it!” He grabs the front of the stupid hoodie Virgil started wearing after Anton died because it fucking reminded him of his precious son. He wants to tear it to shreds. He wants Virgil’s stupid biker jacket back. Virgil claws at his shoulder in return.

“Get _out_!” He physically turns Deceit.

“But—”

“No! I should have known better than to trust you, you lying _bastard_! Get out of his room now!” He shoves Deceit towards the door and out of it, and Deceit catches the doorframe as he stumbles.

“Virgil wait—” he starts, but Virgil says, “No! You’re wrong! You’re _lying_!”

He heaves a breath and Deceit almost thinks he’ll calm down, he’ll apologize, but he hisses, “Leave, now, and never come back! You’re nothing but a lying, treacherous _snake_ , and that’s all you’ll ever be!”

Deceit barely gets his fingers out of the frame before the door slams in his face. The name card hits him right between the eyes.

Deceit never got a name card on his door. Virgil had been catatonic for days after his first nameday and never finished it.

He fights down the sound building up in him, threatening to burst through his chest like an overripe cantaloupe, and punches the door. All it does is hurt his hand.

“I hate you,” he keens. “I hate you, I hate you, I…”

It’s a lie.

* * *

After that day, Virgil’s room and all of the dead sides’ rooms had vanished. The busy hallway filled with doors had become a small corner, and Deceit now had neighbors on both sides where before he’d had the empty room of Wonder between him and Ignorance. But he hadn’t cared.

He’d started wearing makeup after that. His scar used to be the most prominent thing about him, but if he was going to be a _lying, treacherous_ _snake_ anyway, he might as well look the part. He designed the makeup and wore it and wore it and wore it until it became a part of him. Now it appears whether he puts it on or not.

He’d been so sure, at first, that Virgil would come back. So sure he couldn’t leave them. Not for those three buffoons in the front of the brain, who didn’t know the rest of them, didn’t understand them, had never even cared about what life was like for the sides living and dying day by day in the subconscious.

They didn’t even notice three quarters or more of their fellow sides dying off. What could Virgil possibly see in them?

But it turns out they had exactly what he was looking for: They’re nothing like Deceit.

And now, here he is, in Anton’s room like he never thought he would be again, with fucking _Logic_ as the new successor to Anxiety because apparently Deceit can’t even be trusted with _that_ , staring down the same shovel he’d destroyed his chances of ever having a family with more than a decade ago.

And all he wants is for Virgil to come in and sneer at him and _keep breathing_. He doesn’t care if Depression kills the others wholesale. He just wants the only person he has left to stay with him.

Deceit snaps his fingers and the shovel melts into a puddle, clenches his fist and it compacts into a flower.

The wooden handle becomes a stem and the metal blade becomes delicate petals. Perfect and beautiful, just like everything else in this room.

And then he disappears it. Virgil wouldn’t want it from him, anyway.

* * *

Logan clutches the notebook.

Patton and Virgil will be fine.

He’ll never need to know what’s written in there.

It’s going to be fine.

Everything will be okay.

Roman and Deceit get into a fight, but it hasn’t come to blows and Logan’s entire brain is consumed by a charred notebook and a little plastic container of eyeshadow right now.

He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want this. The responsibility he can handle, but he can’t…

They were just starting to be friends. Logan and Virgil were just starting to really be friends.

He can’t carry his dead friend’s mantle.

_Roman will probably have to take over for Patton._

Except that he won’t have to take over anything, because it’ll all be fine. Everything will be fine. Any minute now.

He just has to wait.

* * *

 

 Virgil, when he can breathe in a way that approaches evenly, when he can think of anything but how awful this is, gives Patton one more tight squeeze. Patton’s stopped sobbing by now, but the hitch in his shoulders says he’s not done crying. They’ve been hugging and crying for a while now.

That’s understandable. The first time Virgil took on an aspect that wasn’t his own, he was thrown for a loop, too.

“Patty? How you feelin’ right now?” he murmurs, because he has run out of energy to feel his own feelings but he can worry over Patton’s any day.

Hah. Worry. Like how he took over Worry’s role ages ago.

Some day he’s gonna stop making these jokes. All they ever do is depress him.

Hah. Like Depression. Who they just murdered.

He really is gonna stop. Some day, he really will.

“I’m okay,” Patton chokes out, which, okay, bullshit.

“Pull the other one,” Virgil tells him, as gently as he can. “I hear it’s got whistles.”

Patton’s breath catches and Virgil’s hoodie pulls as he clenches his fists in it.

“I just—I’m just so _angry_ ,” he whispers. “He was supposed to be your brother and he was…I just…”

“Yeah,” Virgil mutters. “Sucks. He used to be really nice, too.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Patton pulls him painfully close and his fingernails bite into Virgil’s sides.

“He was _not_ ,” Patton sobs. “Don’t—don’t apologize for him! He wasn’t your fault! He’s just—I can’t—no. He wasn’t your fault.”

Virgil could definitely have done something earlier, but there’ll be time for that later. He scritches his fingers through Patton’s hair.

“You still feeling mad?” he asks. Patton makes an inarticulate sound. That’s probably a yes.

“Here’s something I do—I used to do with Fury. It helps sometimes. Do you wanna try that or do you wanna be mad for a little longer?” Virgil is all too familiar with holding on to one feeling to avoid all the others, and Patton did just murder a guy. He might need a bit before he’s ready to accept it.

He wouldn’t _have_ anything to accept if Virgil had just done his damn job right. Either of his jobs. Any of his jobs. He should have been paying better attention, realized that Patton would be angry at the dude who murdered a dozen of his peers. Should have killed Jordan instead of getting stuck in his burning room and involving everyone else. Shouldn’t have let Jordan come back in the first place.

Should have been better and maybe Jordan would never have done any of this. Maybe there’s a world in which Virgil still has a brother.

Maybe he needs some help, too.

“If you wanna do it, I’ll try anything,” Patton says, because he trusts Virgil. Why the hell does he, though?

Questions for another time. Or never. Never works. Virgil doesn’t wanna know.

“I’ll need you to let go of me,” he tells Patton. Patton’s arms remain tight around him. “It’s just for a second.”

Maybe he should sink out and come back? No, that’s a terrible idea. Yeah, disappear on the guy who just killed someone for you, genius. Fantastic.

“Do I have to?” Patton asks.

Virgil snorts. “Well shit, I can’t make you,” he says. Patton giggles a little hysterically.

“Do you really want me to?” Patton asks again. “I don’t…”

Well, Patton isn’t Fury. He needs different things. Virgil settles in for the long term. “Nah. Let’s stay like this a while longer.”

The others can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost this entire chapter was going to rot in my harddrive forever as 'not relevant to the story and wouldn't make sense as a oneshot', but I got the sweetest, most meaningful comment I've ever received on any of my works and I wanted to respond to that. Yo, thedragonsarecats, this one's for you!
> 
> Seriously, you guys have been so incredibly kind to me and I could never have anticipated how much love this fandom has to give. Thank you so much for your comments, your tumblr messages, your sharing, everything. This fic'll have at least one more chapter to it, but I wanted to make it clear that I appreciate each and every one of you.
> 
> **Warnings:** Deceit as a sympathetic(?) character (he's not...good? but he's not like...evil? idk how to tag that), verbal arguments with some physical components, grief, anger, jealousy, self-blame/fallout of abuse and Virgil's rough life in general, why have I hurt the boy like this, I am sorry


	8. Can't Get My Shadow to Stick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman is the hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, chapter number has expanded...I am sorry...someone wanted to talk about himself...
> 
>  **On Deceit and lying:** At this current moment, Deceit is completely wiped. He is exhausted and cranky and needs a power bar and a gatorade. He is almost incapable of telling the truth. If he did, it would take a lot of effort. He can, however, communicate information. He's gotten p good at telling people what he wants to say without saying anything factually correct, either by lying in a way that makes it clear what he wants someone to know or by saying something that isn't true in and of itself but implies the truth. He's also in charge of the comforting lies ppl tell themselves, so he's good for those all day long.
> 
> Also: If he believed the sky were green, he could say it's blue right now, no problem. He can say things that are true as long as he doesn't know they're true. Have fun with that :)

Roman hates waiting.

That’s kind of the point of being the _prince_ , right? You go out and slay the dragon and save everyone and there’s plenty of bravery, and nobility, and sacrifice, but there’s very little _waiting_.

You never send your subjects out to slay the dragon. You don’t have to stay back and hope they’ll be coming back.

Coming back _alright_ , he means. Of course they’ll come back. Virgil and Patton are bravely defeating the villain (somehow. They can’t really _kill_ him because he’s Virgil’s brother and that’s just distressing, but that is how this kind of thing usually goes, and Roman really isn’t sure how else a happy ending is accomplished), and they’ll be fine! That’s how this _goes_. Bad things happen, but the heroes always win. Roman is fine to stay here just this once until the foregone conclusion.

And besides, he has a job that’s just as important.

See, Roman knows he doesn’t have a reputation for his smarts. He’s clever, and witty, and strategic, but most people look at him and his flamboyant attitude and royal attire and write him off as the dreamy fantasy guy. And he is! He is the dreamiest, most fantastic guy in Thomas’s brain. Barring Danny Devito and his ilk, Roman may be the dreamiest, most fantastic guy out there.

But he’s also the one who stands between the Light Sides and the Dark Sides. He’s the one who watches out for Patton and Logan and Thomas, guards them from what vicious things stalk through the subconscious. And, sure, he had erroneously counted Virgil as a Dark Side when he’s clearly not evil so much as awkward and emo, but even if he makes mistakes sometimes, what he does is still important! And he didn’t get to be good at it by being stupid. He knows which battles to win to keep them all safe from the evil influences at the back of the brain.

And he knows he isn’t the guy to fight Depression. He is big enough to admit that much.

Not that he couldn’t, of course. He has a sword and the burning desire to protect his famILY. But despair is hard to fight. It’s a siren song and Roman is no Odysseus. Roman is Hercules! You don’t send Hercules on the Odyssey.

You do keep Hercules with the…Oracle, maybe? The wise king? What is Logan in this metaphor…well, the Oracle works. The guy who has what you need to make it through but who can’t exactly pull out a sword and fight for himself.

And, of course, you need someone to keep an eye on the snake that would be whispering in his ear.

Deceit cannot be trusted; that much is clear. It’s right in the name! And not even Virgil likes him. Virgil is an unrepentant Dark Side apologist. If there’s a Dark Side so heinous that not even Virgil wants to hang out with him, he must reach the depths of evil. There’s just no other way.

And he keeps kicking flowerpots and disappearing shovels, and who does that in someone else’s room? Who even does that?

See, right now he’s even stalking through the garden, fidgeting with that remote thing. Is that a bomb? What if it’s a bomb? This is why Roman has to stay with Logan. Someone needs to keep an eye out for him.

And he’s not doing it for himself.

Roman brushes by Logan again as he follows behind Deceit, but still, no reaction. He might vaguely sway towards Roman, but it might be a trick of the mind. He’s just staring at the things in his hands that Roman won’t look at, thank you very much. He doesn’t need to know.

Deceit reaches out a finger towards a yellow flower, and before he can even touch it, Roman parries him away.

“No! You will not destroy the sanctity of this room, vile fiend!” he cries, deftly maneuvering Deceit’s hand back away from the delicate flowers. He is here to defend this garden and all that is inside it! Deceit will not hinder him in this quest!

Deceit gives him a flat look.

“Oh no. You’ve stopped me. I was about to do something terrible. This room has never seen the like. Muahahahaha,” he says drily, and Roman _hmph_ s, affronted. He could at least have the decency to act foiled!

“I do not know what you want, villain, but I will ensure that all that I have been entrusted with is protected!” And maybe, possibly Virgil will stop looking at him like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Roman apologized, okay? He’s been trying really hard to be nicer to Virgil since he told them his name. Names are important.

Virgil just looks at him like a tragedy, though. Roman is a _hero_ , he just doesn’t understand it. Maybe when Virgil comes back he’ll finally start to explain it. Or just stop making sad eyes all the time, that works too.

Until then, Virgil—who is kind of a prince in need of rescue and kind of a prince who does the rescuing—has entrusted him with this task, and he will not fail. He will guard Logan and this last bastion of safety and righteousness with vigor and, well, vigilance.

Patton would appreciate the pun.

“You know, I’m surprised Virgil let you in here,” Deceit sneers. “I’d have thought he would keep you as far away from this room as possible. You of all people…protect this room? What a laugh.”

Roman furrows his brow. What is he prattling on about now?

“I don’t follow?” he says. “I’m an excellent protector, for this place as well as any other. It does share some passive resemblance to my realm, I suppose…?”

There are certainly plants and vaguely knight-themed decorations. Roman’s realm has those. He tends more towards the princely than the paladine, though.

Deceit laughs. “Oh, I’ll bet it does. And you just feel like you’re right where you need to be, don’t you?”

Roman would really rather be defeating the enemy, but he doesn’t feel particularly unwelcome here. It isn’t affecting him like Virgil’s room would.

“Are you going somewhere with this?” he asks. If Deceit doesn’t have anything actually useful to say, he really should be paying closer attention to the door, or trying to get Logan to calm down, or something.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Deceit demurs. “Just…well, you know. Awful tragedy, what you’ve done to this place.”

Roman glances around suspiciously. “Are you talking about the shovel? Because that was definitely on you. We all saw it.”

Deceit shakes his head and glares.

“I don’t know why I bother,” he mutters, and then, louder, “Of course I am. I’m certainly not talking about what happened to Vigilance.”

“Wait, so someone actually lived in this room?” Roman asks. It makes sense, now that he thinks about it, but… “Isn’t Vigilance covered by Anxiety? Why would we have a whole separate side just for some small part of Virgil’s duties?”

Deceit snorts. “Fuck if I know. But his death was the last nail in the coffin, wasn’t it? Ever since then, Virgil’s never been able to look at you. I bet he’s furious.”

Come to think of it…Virgil just looks at him like he’s so _hurt_ sometimes. But that’s just because he wanted to be accepted, right? Roman’s hurt his feelings, maybe, but Virgil forgave him for that. He’s never really tried to hurt him. And he couldn’t possibly have done anything to Vigilance. He’s never even met the guy!

Deceit picks up on his puzzlement.

“Oh, you don’t know? I’m surprised. Then again, I shouldn’t be. Virgil is right not to trust you, after what you’ve done,” he idly traces the petals of some sort of flower. It’s orange and spotted. Roman doesn’t know enough about flowers to be certain, but it might be a lily.

“I’ve never done anything to Virgil that he hasn’t forgiven me for. He trusts me,” Roman says. What the hell is Deceit even trying to say here?

Deceit gives him a pitying look. “Of course.”

“He does. He left me here with you, didn’t he? He trusts me to keep Logic safe from your wily words,” Roman challenges. Deceit’s face does something too quick to catch—it’s so fast it almost looks like a flinch. But he shakes his head and examines his nails.

“Or he trusts me to keep both of us safe from _you_ ,” Deceit says, glancing up briefly before buffing his nails on his cape. “You’ve already taken one son from him, why would he ever trust _you_ with his real family?”

“I—son?” is all Roman can say. Son? Virgil doesn’t have a son. They would know. Roman would know. Or Logan, certainly.

And he acts like a teenaged brat half the time—Roman means this in the most loving way possible—and his music interests are from 2005. He can’t be a dad. Patton is a dad and Virgil is nothing like him.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you that, either? Gosh, he really _doesn’t_ trust you with anything. He doesn’t even want you to know what a terrible thing you’ve done to him,” Deceit fakes surprise, looking innocently up at Roman.

“What. What is this terrible thing you’re accusing me of? Get to the point or get it over with, Deceit,” Roman insists through clenched teeth. The sooner this conversation is over, the sooner he can go back to helping Logan, and then Virgil will come in and explain everything and it’ll be fine. Maybe this room is just an oversized closet he stuck a nametag on as a joke. Maybe he really did have a son and Jordan killed him. Maybe he was Vigilance before he was Anxiety. But Roman isn’t believing it from anyone but Virgil (or maybe Patton).

“I’m just saying,” Deceit murmurs, “you guard your so-called ‘light’ sides with a lot of…one could say…Vigilance?”

No.

Roman’s hands clench tight into fists. _No_.

“What are you implying,” he snarls.

“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying you absorbed Virgil’s darling son. His favorite person died because you swooped right in and took over. You might as well have killed him yourself,” Deceit makes big, sad eyes at Roman. “You killed my brother, you monster.”

“Shut up!” Roman growls. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t hurt anyone! I never even met Vigilance! You’re lying!”

“Or you just can’t handle the truth,” Deceit muses. “Our gallant hero, responsible for the greatest tragedy we’ve ever known. At least Depression has the integrity to admit he’s a monster.”

“I am _not_ the monster here,” Roman says. Deceit smiles.

“Tell that to yourself,” he says. “Tell that to this empty room. Tell that to poor, darling Virgil as he comes here to mourn every day. Why do you think he hated you the most? Depression was bad, but you stole the last light of his life from him and now you wear Vigilance’s role like a trophy. You know why you feel comfortable in this room? Because you ate up everything that was left of its real side, and now whatever is left of poor Anton is reaching out to his home. Face it, Roman. You _are_ the monster.”

Deceit glanced pointedly at the door, at Logan, at the veiled bed in the corner. It doesn’t look like it’s been touched in a while. “Virgil knows. He can’t stand you, and he certainly can’t trust you. Frankly, neither can anyone else.”

“Shut your mouth, fiend!” Roman’s sword is there before he realizes it, inches from the snake’s face. Deceit loses his smug look for half a moment.

And then Deceit is blinked away and there, standing under his sword, is Logan.

“Roman, stop!” he barks, and Roman is so startled that he does. What trickery is this?

“I really love being popped around like that. Just my favorite,” Deceit whines from Logan’s former spot on a garden bench. “Not dizzy or startling or anything.”

Roman looks at Logan—apparently the real Logan, just here to stop him from halting the fiend’s tongue once and for all—and frowns.

“What gives, dude?” he asks.

“What ‘gives’ is that Virgil and Patton are doing something incredibly dangerous right now, and we cannot afford to be fighting amongst ourselves,” Logan says severely, adjusting his glasses. “Deceit, stop riling Roman up. Roman, he literally _cannot_ tell the truth right now, stop letting him get to you. Whatever he said, it was a lie. We cannot afford to be losing our heads.”

Roman falters. “But—but he said—”

“I don’t know what he said and I don’t care. He was just picking a fight, Roman,” Logan says. “Isn’t that right, Deceit?”

Deceit glares poisonously.

“Just because I’m tired means I can’t communicate,” he snarls. “It’s my fault you have your heads so far up—”

“See? Just trying to antagonize you,” Logan interrupts. Deceit sneers.

“I’ll show you antagonizing,” he mutters. Roman scowls back at him.

“He was telling me I’d _absorbed_ Virgil’s _son_ ,” he tells Logan. “Virgil doesn’t have a son, does he? I couldn’t possibly have done that. That—is that even how it works? He’s lying, right?”

Logan frowns. His fingers brush over the journal in his hands. The binding looks like a composition book, but the cover is blackened completely. “Of course he is.”

Roman would like to take that at face value. Really, he would.

“Would the book…?” he prompts, gesturing.

“No,” Logan says. “We don’t need to read this. Patton and Virgil will return soon, and then we can ask him himself.”

Deceit’s head snaps up to look at Logan.

That’s not good. Deceit can see lies.

Logan looks troubled. This isn’t good at all.

“Maybe we should just…check it. Just in case,” Roman suggests. “We don’t need to read the whole thing to make sure, we just need to know that Virgil…doesn’t have a family…except for the murder guy.”

Hmm. That doesn’t sound as good out loud as it did in his head.

But he needs to know. He needs to know he didn’t do it. Roman is a _hero_.

“I can’t give you that one,” Deceit drawls. “Virgil has no family. He certainly couldn’t be considered family by about a dozen sides. In fact, I’d say if anyone can claim to be his family, it’s certainly you, after all you’ve done for him.”

So that means…Virgil does have a family…and it’s big…and Roman is part of it! Well, of course he is. The Light Sides have adopted Virgil. Roman in particular has made many strong efforts towards making him feel included! They’ve really begun to repair their relationship! He even sat down and read that book Logan loaned him for how to be a better partner, even though there is obviously no one anyone would rather work with than Roman.

“…and especially since you completely obliterated all surviving remnants of his favorite son,” Deceit finishes. “I’m a big fan of how you turned your Vigilance against him. You certainly aren’t more cruel by accident than us ‘dark sides’ have ever been intentionally, you hubristic brute.”

Oh.

Roman winces and looks to Logan. “Can we maybe peek at it? Does it have a family tree?”

Logan stares at the book. He’s hunched, not a lot, but a lot for Logan.

Roman really needs to know. He needs to know Deceit is lying. He wouldn’t just, he wouldn’t _consume_ an innocent side’s entire purpose. He’s a good person.

“Logan?” Roman tries. Logan startles.

“What? Oh, yes. I disagree completely. What did you say?” He blinks rapidly as he processes. “I was…lost in thought. I apologize.”

Logan needs a good person right now.

Roman sidles closer. He’s not really the comfort-y guy, but…maybe if he just sort of stands close and tries his best? It’s just like acting, right? But not acting, because Roman _isn’t_ a monster; he _is_ a hero. He is.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says softly. Logan looks at the book and flips the eyeshadow over in his hand.

 “We have no evidence to suggest that any of us will survive the next hour, let alone this entire situation,” Logic says. His shoulders shake. “The intelligent thing to do would be to accept that Anxiety and Morality are dead and strategize from there.”

“That’s not true,” Roman lies. Deceit glares at them.

“Virgil will be _fine_ ,” Deceit snaps. “He’s coming home. He is.”

He's clutching that button again. Was that something of Vigilance’s? That Vigilance doesn’t have anymore, because he's dead?

Could Roman really have…

No. Virgil doesn’t have kids. Deceit is lying. It’s what he does! He’s lying. It’s not true. Roman would never do that to anyone, not even a Dark Side.

He’s lying, he’s lying, he’s _lying_. He has to be lying.

The cover of the notebook shines in spots and splotches. The ink is still there, under the soot. Something is written on the front.

Roman drifts even closer to Logan and sort of leans on him. He puts his arm around his shoulder because that’s comforting, right? That’s good? That’s what a good person would do, so it’s what Roman does. It’s what he wants to do.

Logan shifts to lean back on Roman and the notebook tilts just a little. Just enough for the perfect light.

Where it’s not too ashy to make out, Roman reads:

_IF FOUND RETURN TO ~~ANTO *****~~_

~~Tony~~  
***** nxiety  
~~~~****** gilance  
Fury  
~~Deceit~~  
Anxiety  
Deceit  
Fur *****  
*********  
************

The bottom is more burnt, and Roman pulls Logic a little closer so the light will shift and he can decipher the footnote:

_The closer to the top of the list, the better. If none of us are around, GET SOMEWHERE SAFE and READ._

Roman doesn’t know what Virgil’s handwriting looks like. This could be it. It could not be.

Anxiety and Vigilance are written separately. But so are Anton and Vigilance, and those are supposedly the same person, right? Vigilance could be a nickname. Or maybe a real side but not Virgil’s son. Or maybe he’s still around but not here right this instant. That doesn’t mean anything.

What’s taking them so long? Virgil and Patton need to come home. They need to come home so Roman can be sure. Because he’s not, he’s not a murderer. He isn’t the kind of monster who would parade around shoving people’s faces in their grief. He never did anything to Virgil’s son and he didn’t steal away this hypothetical son’s very essence after his death rendered him incapable of defending himself. He didn’t turn it against Virgil.

He was wrong, once, about Virgil, and that’s _it_. He made a mistake. People make mistakes. He was forgiven and he made amends. He deserves to be forgiven. He’s trying his hardest. He’s better now.

Roman knows he can be…judgmental. Hasty. Overzealous. But he didn’t, he isn’t, he’s not a monster. There are good guys and bad guys in this world and Roman is the hero. He protects the innocent and he defeats evil. Barring Virgil, the only people he has ever harmed are evil. He’s forgiven. He’s the good guy.

He is.

Would a villain think that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "This story isn't about Roman," I say to myself.  
> "Fucking what," says Roman, already hoarding all of the spare Main Character Points(TM)
> 
> Also, this story has [fanart](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/174388583549/it-took-me-a-week-longer-than-it-should-have-to) now! Please look at it and love it as much as I do. Because I love it a lot. Look at him!!! The boy!!!!!!


	9. Made in the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the top down. It's time to be honest.
> 
> Deceit remembers when he stood in these shoes. Whose shoes does he stand in now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? The fifth time I've expanded the chapter count? Surely not
> 
> The quote for the title is long and posted [here](http://hahanoiwont.tumblr.com/post/174937708069).

Patton and Virgil appear.

Logan was hoping they would, of course, and trying to expect them, but somehow, he’s still surprised. Virgil has retrieved or recreated his hoodie (come to think of it, Logan hasn’t seen that since Jordan became a concern. He dearly hopes it’s not actually Jordan’s, because that would be a gruesome trophy), and he’s looking tired and washed out but alive. Patton has a scrape on his cheek but seems to be otherwise untouched.

Logan feels an embarrassing need to touch them. Just to make sure they’re real. Roman lurches forward and they both nearly lose their balance, but then Roman halts abruptly and they’re stable again.

“You’re alright,” Logan says. “You’re back.”

Deceit makes a wounded noise. Why?

“We’re back,” Patton says, as Virgil steps across to get to Deceit. Patton’s death grip on his arm is revealed as he doesn’t get very far before being stopped.

Deceit takes the step forward, staring at Patton like he’s shot him.

“Fury is…coming back, isn’t he,” he croaks. He leaves Virgil between himself and Patton.

Fury?

“I’m so sorry, kidlet,” Virgil murmurs, and clasps Deceit close with one arm. Deceit allows it and even seems to lean in—hard enough to sway Virgil, who is kept up by Patton’s grip on his arm.

…unlikely as it would have seemed, perhaps Virgil does have a child, after all.

Deceit curses into Virgil’s shoulder and holds on tightly enough to wrinkle his sweater. They stay that way for a moment, Virgil and Deceit, absorbing some comfort from each other. Roman’s hand finds its way to Logan’s elbow and he holds on painfully tight.

“I shouldn’t get his book,” Deceit finally says, but Virgil shrugs and clasps his shoulder. It’s a little bit of an awkward motion, since he clearly can’t move his other arm, which remains in captivity with Patton.

“Nothing’s gonna change in the next few hours, we can get it once we’re done,” Virgil says. “I’m gonna need you for this next bit. Stick around?”

Deceit looks startled, and no wonder. Logan is a bit surprised himself. It’s time to learn the honest truth. Why would they need Deceit?

“Perhaps it’s time for an explanation?” Logan reminds him, and Virgil sighs.

“Yeah. That.”

He and Deceit exchange a long look.

“If Fury’s dead…” Deceit trails off.

“Up to the two of us, kidlet. If Fury’s gone, I don’t think we’re seeing the others back anytime soon. Hiding or…” Deceit hugs himself under his cape, and Virgil doesn’t lose contact with his shoulder. They seem to be establishing hierarchy. Or roll call? There seems to be some sort of procedure.

This should be a fascinating look into a society’s development under threat, or the establishment of order in the wake of disaster. Logan should be curious.

Curious. _Curiosity_.

This is terrible.

Seized by sudden impulse, Logan hurls the eyeshadow he’s been clutching at Virgil’s forehead. In an instant, Virgil is curled over Deceit, back to back with Patton, as Deceit makes protesting noises and squirms. Patton is breathing hard, eyes darting to identify the threat and ready to do…something. Is he emitting some form of light?

“What the hell, Virgil, let go of me,” Deceit says, and Virgil, startled, complies. Deceit looks a little put out when he does. Virgil steps back and casts about for his assailant, and Logan steps back and straightens his shirt out.

“Uh, Logan?” asks Roman, who was admittedly forced to dodge Logan’s arm on the follow through.

“Yes, Roman?” Logan asks, pushing his glasses into place. He pretends his voice is steadier than it is. “Did you need something?”

“You threw my eyeshadow at me,” Virgil realizes with a pout. He looks at Logan. “Why’d you throw my eyeshadow at me? Wait, are you…okay?”

“Negative reinforcement,” Logan grits out. Deceit snorts. Logan has spent the last hour and a half waiting for the worst news of his life. “Next time, ask for help _before_ your room is on fire. Don’t—do not _ever_ do that again.”

Virgil continues to pout. Can’t he see that Logan is serious here? That he’s—that he thought—

“Hey, you can’t side with him,” Virgil tells Deceit. “He just threw eyeshadow at you. That’s a projectile weapon.”

“And he doesn’t have a point at all,” Deceit drawls, and Logan is dangerously close to getting along with him. At least he agrees on this issue.

At least someone is going to acknowledge that they all just let two of their own walk off to die.

“Patton, none of these people are nice to me,” Virgil whines. “Give them the face.”

Patton, who has retained his death grip on Virgil even through his defensive maneuvers, finally relaxes just enough to give him a strained smile. “Well, kiddo, I really would, but I think I might agree with them on this one.”

* * *

It’s really weird hearing Virgil called ‘kiddo.’

Once a side’s existed for a few months, they’re all essentially the same age. Deceit is aware of this. Mentally, psychically, emotionally, they’re all as old as Thomas is. They have his memories and experiences alongside their own. Virgil is maybe more experienced in being a manifested aspect of personality, but he isn’t really ‘older’ than Deceit.

No, no, still weird. That’s still weird to think. Even when Virgil acts like a brat in front of these three bumbling assholes, he just seems…in control? Confident?

Deceit knows when Roman’s confidence is a lie, when Patton is faking it, when even Logic is uncertain and trying to hide it. But in the worst circumstances, Virgil has this…steadiness. He’s seen worse before and this will not sway him, even when he freaks out over literally everything. Or maybe it’s more like, he definitely thinks every new thing is the end of the world, but he’s sure he can protect them? Nothing in the world seems like it can defeat Virgil forever.

Well, in things not relating to Anton. Vigilance. Obviously.

But the point is. Kiddo. It’s weird.

Another thing that’s weird is how close Virgil is. Virgil can’t stand being in the same room as Deceit. He’s avoided touching him for nearly a decade, looking at him or talking to him for months at a time before Deceit inevitably gets sick of it and _forces_ him to pay attention. And now he’s almost…hovering. What the fuck, right? Virgil doesn’t _do_ this (anymore). He doesn’t care whether Deceit lives or dies (anymore). He _left_.

And Jordan died, but shit, that didn’t seem to stick.

And Fury.

Deceit glances at Morality.

If Fury wasn’t dead before, he is now.

“We should sit down, get somewhere better to talk. This is gonna take a while,” Virgil sighs. He looks over with that weirdly soft expression. He must just be tired. Deceit is exhausted. “You ready, kidlet?”

Oh, shit, they’re really doing this. For realsies.

“Commons?” Deceit asks, and Virgil winces.

“Fury’s room, maybe. We’ll need to clean that up, anyway,” he proposes. Right. Fuck.

Deceit hopes Jealousy made it out somehow. That he’s hiding somewhere deep in the back of the mind. Gray matter, maybe, or in the memories. Anywhere. “Lead the way.”

Virgil can’t seem to disentangle himself from the grasp of Morality, which is…it’s not _great_. That has the potential to be pretty damned not great. But is it Deceit’s business, really? Virgil doesn’t want him around. As soon as Virgil doesn’t need him to explain things he’ll be back out on his ass again, but this time he won’t have _anyone_. Not unless he can find someone left alive.

After Deceit came around, only two sides ever disappeared. He didn’t know what losing everyone felt like before.

He takes Logic and Creativity with him to Fury’s room. Virgil and Morality have already appeared. Morality seems to have relaxed a touch. Virgil seems to be out of feelings for the day.

Fury’s room has been trashed. He must have fought back.

Or maybe this is just what it’s always like. Deceit didn’t know him that well.

Virgil curses softly, nudging a broken picture frame with his foot and closing his eyes for a moment. Deceit feels a tug and watches as Virgil (lies) hides what he’s feeling, closing his eyes and clearing his face carefully for a moment. When he lets out the breath he’s holding, it’s like he’s not grieving at all.

This isn’t what Deceit wanted, all those years ago. It isn’t what he wants now.

“A long time ago, when we were young, no one lived in the subconscious,” Virgil starts. Deceit hums along in an undertone, remembering his own first history lesson.

* * *

“No one?” Deceit wrinkles his nose. “Were those other guys not around yet? Where else would we live?”

Virgil—Tony, at this time—smiles at him sardonically. Regretfully, he will realize later. “Naw, they were around. We all used to live together, believe it or not.”

Deceit looks at Anton, but Anton is nodding along. “Really? But we’re [not] supposed to talk to them.”

“Well, now we’re not, but when Dad was a kid, you know, in the time of the dinosaurs, we all lived together!” Anton says. Deceit can’t even imagine it. He’s only met the three in the front of the brain once, when Tony brought him up to show him them. And they didn’t even meet him back that time! He has to wait until after his nameday to introduce himself.

Well, he doesn’t _have_ to, but that’s what everyone else does. Deceit doesn’t wanna look stupid on his first impression and then no one in the conscious mind will ever take him seriously again. He has to wait until he can think of something cool to do. Anxiety did something so good everyone screams a little when they see him up there; Deceit wants to be like that, too.

“Did you live up front, too, Anton?” Deceit asks. Tony and Anton both laugh. Deceit doesn’t see why; it was an honest question.

Tony puts an arm around Anton’s shoulders and ruffles his hair.

“Nah, kidlet, this one’s barely older than you,” he says. “we’ll get to Anton later. I get to sound cool first.”

Tony makes a ‘cool’ face and Anton leans in.

“I have all of his memories,” he whispers to Deceit. “Dad was a total loser back then. One time, Morality said he was gonna learn how to make pancakes and Dad got so excited he cried.”

Deceit can’t feel him lying. He looks to Tony doubtfully. Is Tony capable of crying?

“Believe it or not, I was young once, too. I am only fourteen, same as you,” Tony says, shrugging. Deceit tries to imagine him as a kid and comes up with Anton, but smaller. Which makes no sense, since Anton is also fourteen. Since they are all the same person, and all.

But still. Could Anxiety have ever been young? Deceit doubts it.

* * *

“No one lived in the subconscious? But that doesn’t make any sense,” Logic protests. “It would have been too crowded for us not to have encountered each other, and I never met any Curiosity. Certainly some of us have always taken a backseat.”

Personally, Deceit doesn’t think these three would find their heads up their own asses, but he’s not gonna start a fight over it now. He settles for glaring.

“Listen to the story, Logan,” Morality says quietly, keeping tight to Virgil’s side. Virgil winces but doesn’t remove him. He’s always just letting people vent at him. It’s annoying. He never fights back! He’ll snark and posture and loom, but he won’t _do_ anything at the end of the day, even though his arm has to be hurting.

Besides, huffing and hissing hasn’t worked on anyone in the subconscious pretty much ever, and now that he’s given up on intimidating them, it probably won’t work on the guys from the front brain, either. Deceit doesn’t understand it. Is being ‘accepted’ really worth all this?

Deceit wouldn’t be able to stand it. It’s humiliating. Virgil has the power to literally kill any of them and he’s letting Morality cling to him like an angry limpet in a cardigan. He’s not even wearing it right! And he isn’t letting go, either. Who needs to cut off someone’s circulation constantly like that?

Deceit is sure he was never that pathetic.

* * *

Being created is a lonely process.

Deceit—who doesn’t yet call himself Deceit, but who hasn’t got a better name, either, and fuck you if you think he’s giving you information about his real person name just because of a convenient flashback—he hates the color gray. It’s the only thing he’s ever seen for himself, not through Thomas’s memories, in this ever-shifting almost-mist. He’s sick of it.

He’s lonely.

Is he the only person like him in the world? Is he in the world? He doesn’t want this to be his world. It’s terrible. It’s a terrible world. He doesn’t want it.

He uses his newly-formed arms to hug himself, curled into a ball on what passes for the ground, or maybe on nothing at all. At least he has a body now. At least he can move, even if there’s nothing for him to move from or to.

Floating through nothing, _being_ nothing, watching it shift at the corners of his awareness but never so much that he could be _sure_ it was moving, unable to speak, unable to move, unable to do anything but slowly go mad and hope and hope and pray that someone exists, anyone exists, someone out there—

Deceit is glad to have a body now.

The overwhelming nothing gets somehow nothinger. The silence goes from absolute to muffling and Deceit is sure this is it, the uncaring not-warm-not-cold-not-pressure will descend on him and snuff out his tiny, insignificant thoughts and he will be nothing again and he will never have been anything and he will have met no one and no one will have ever talked to him, ever interacted with him, he will die alone and be alone and then he won’t ‘be’ at all and—

“Uh, hello? It’s your worst nightmares, I’ve come to haunt you,” Deceit hears.

He hears. He hears something. He hasn’t even tried talking because he’s been so so afraid that he’ll open his mouth and talk and it’ll be nothing and he’ll be nothing and oh God what if he’s not real, what if he’s imagining his own existence what if he _stops_ imagining his own existence what if—

“I was uh, I was kidding about the nightmares thing. Hello? I know you’re out there,” the voice says. Has he gone crazy? Is he imagining salvation as he finally descends into madness?

“Look, just keep yelling, okay? I’m gonna follow you and I’ll get to you. It might take a bit, but it’s not gonna work if you stop,” Deceit’s imaginary friend says.

Deceit is decidedly not yelling. His mouth is closed, as it always has been. Even his imagination has gone insane.

“Whoa whoa whoa, quit that, go back to being scared, I can’t find you if you aren’t afraid,” says Deceit’s imagination.

Without thinking, he opens his mouth and a dusty croak comes out. He hasn’t ever used his voice before.

He coughs a couple times and tries again.

“That makes [no] sense,” comes out fine. “Are you real?”

“Looks like you have a voice after all, scaredy cat,” says the voice. “That wasn’t, that wasn’t a clever nickname. Damn it, I can do better than that. Give me a second.”

There’s silence again. Sudden and deafening. Nothing to hear, nothing to see but gray and gray and gray. Did Deceit really hear anything in the first place? He isn’t sure. Maybe he was imagining a memory of someone else. Maybe he’s alone. Maybe he’ll always be alone. What has he done to deserve this? He’s only existed for days, or hours, or weeks, or forever. What could he have possibly done to deserve this?

“Hey, whoa, you don’t have to scream in my ear!” says Deceit’s companion, apparently not imaginary after all. Or they are being reimagined. The voice continues. “Look, I won’t stop talking, okay? I guess that’s a no-go. But if you stop being scared I won’t be able to hear it anymore and I might lose you. Okay?”

“I [don’t] understand,” Deceit protests. His voice creaks, but it’s getting stronger.

“You do?” the voice says. “Are you gonna be, what, Fear? Terror? Something? No one understands right off the bat.”

Why are those words capitalized? Deceit can hear it in his companion’s voice. What’s important about them? How can he _be_ Fear?

“Where did you go?” says the voice, and Deceit feels a jolt of terror at the prospect of being lost. There’s a sharp exclamation of—pain? Startlement?

“What’s going on? What was that?” Deceit asks.

“Nothing, it’s okay, I’m fine,” says the voice, and something happens.

Deceit sees a glimmer. Not the maddening shifting feeling in the corner of his eyes as his surroundings destabilize around him; a real, shimmering glow. It’s real and stable and vaguely oblong, like a pillar or a really small Christmas tree. It shifts and moves but Deceit isn’t afraid of it disappearing. It’s there, it’s real, he sees it past the gray. It’s the only color he’s ever seen. It’s yellow.

“Shouting in my ear, ow, fuck, wait, shit, where’d you go? We’re gonna work on volume control first thing,” the voice continues, and the yellow disappears.

It’s gone. The only thing Deceit has ever seen and it’s gone it’s gone it’s—

“Jesus Christ, kidlet, stop screaming like that! Either yell or don’t yell! Are you afraid or aren’t you?” the voice shouts. “Ow, ow, my ears, oooh I regret this, ugh, fuck.”

The glimmer shows up for a moment. It’s not exactly where it was before, It’s shorter and the top is wider from the glimpse Deceit gets, but he can’t tell exactly.

“Do that again,” he demands. “I [saw something] didn’t see anything! Do that again!”

“Do what again? Complain? I mean, I can,” the voice says. Deceit huffs.

“No! Say you regret this! Show me!” he says, hauling himself to his feet and squinting at the impenetrable gray. Not even the terrible nothing can stop him from finding the yellow again.

“Hoo boy, haven’t felt that in a while. What the fuck are you so excited about? Not seeing stuff is kinda what goes down this deep in the gray matter,” the voice mutters. “Fine. I regret this. I don’t wanna be here. I hate this corner of the brain. It’s weird, and boring, and depressing. I wish newbies would come around literally anywhere else.”

There’s another flicker, but it goes out immediately after the voice moves to its complaints.

“Go back,” Deceit says. “You regret this?”

“Well, no, I don’t,” the voice admits. “I’m glad you’re here, whoever you are. Well, not _here_ here, but I’m glad you, you know, exist? This isn’t the best welcome to the family. Ugh, I wish someone else could find you guys. Hey, start being afraid again, I’m losing you.”

Deceit thinks about the prospect of never seeing yellow again and the voice yelps.

“Fucking—fuck—okay I’m okay, that doesn’t hurt at all, just a nice, pleasant stroll through the plains of fucking asphodel or some shit, just having a good time, really loving this, God I wish people would wait until I’m listening as hard as I can and then scream in my ear more often,” the voice says, and there it is! The yellow! Deceit is ready this time and bolts towards it as soon as it appears. There is no force in the universe that’s gonna keep him from finding it.

“And then you go quiet again. Great. You’re really making this one easy on me, kidlet,” the voice says. It’s closer now, too. This is perfect! Deceit’s found two whole things in his short life and they’re both in the same direction! He’s not alone anymore!

“I shouldn’t be able to feel that. That’s not my job anymore,” the voice says quietly, but the words travel through the yellow and Deceit can hear them perfectly. “That doesn’t make…”

The yellow disappears and the muttering becomes indistinguishable before, “Hey, are you real fuckin’ excited about something? Also, go back to being afraid or I won’t be able to find you, and I swear if you go back to screaming terror I will—”

The yellow flickers in when Deceit’s companion says they won’t be able to find him, because they’re _lying_ , they’re _lying_ to themselves and to him! Deceit can see them when they’re lying!

And then Deceit can see them, full stop, and then he can feel them as he careens straight into a figure appearing out of the gray.

Ow. He can feel them somewhat more than he would like to.

“That [hurt] doesn’t hurt at all,” Deceit whines, rubbing his shoulder where he made impact funny and twisted it.

“Speak for yourself, kidlet, you sure can get your sprint on,” says Deceit’s companion, and Deceit looks up, and sees.

A biker?

…a punk?

His companion is wearing a jean jacket complete with spikes that seem like they should have hurt Deceit pretty badly. His hair is tousled and mildly greasy. He’s got makeup under his eyes even though Deceit is pretty sure it’s supposed to go over.

Deceit would be intimidated except that he’s _so fucking cool_ , and also, real. He’s real. And cool. And Deceit is seeing someone real.

“You look [so cool] like a loser,” he says.

His companion blinks at him.

“Wow, uh, okay. Maybe I’ll just leave you here, then,” he says, and he glimmers yellow because he’s lying! He won’t leave Deceit here! Or he will definitely leave Deceit here and the lie is the maybe but that doesn’t matter because Deceit can find him now! He’s yellow!

Deceit’s companion hoists himself to his feet and offers Deceit a hand.

“You wanna come with me? You don’t have to be alone anymore,” he says, and Deceit is sold.

“I hate that idea [Please],” he says, and doesn’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like what I did with Deceit's dialogue...when he's still young, he doesn't know how to tell the truth, but he's not used to finding an equivalent lie to get his point across. he's trying to say one thing but incapable of telling the truth, so from his own POV, I wanted to express what he wants to say before it gets switched up, too.
> 
> Thank you all for your incredible comments, they really make my day! I have literally irl hugged my phone and jumped up and down bc I'm so excited about receiving comments. It's my favorite.


	10. What You Have

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deceit is tired and upset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title quote for this time is from The Perks of Being a Wallflower! Find the full quote [here](http://hahanoiwont.tumblr.com/post/175251686194).

“Look, I’ve got this whole spiel I do, just let me get through it, okay?” Virgil pulls at his hair with his free hand and Deceit scowls. This whole thing is stupid. He hates this. All it does is bring back memories he’d rather forget, and everyone’s fucking dead anyway. What does he care if these so-called ‘light sides’ know what the rest of them have known since birth? It’s not gonna change facts.

And the facts are…

What is he gonna do when this is over? Are new sides going to appear? Is he going to have to be the new Virgil while Virgil fucks off to play happy family and forget he was ever one of them?

Deceit isn’t ready for this. This was never supposed to happen.

Roman finally gets sick of looking traumatized in the corner—Deceit probably shouldn’t have said what he did to him, but hey, fuck that guy—and blurts out, “Virgil, did you ever have a kid?”

Virgil rubs his temples.

“Look, we will _get_ to that, I am—”

“Because I just wanted to know, not for any particular reason, I just was, I, you know—” Logan cuts him off with, “Roman. Virgil doesn’t have any children,” and Patton says, “I’m sure we’ll get there, let’s just listen to Virgil for now.”

Deceit can see the lie in Logan’s words because Logan doesn’t believe it, or maybe he isn’t sure.

But. Well. It is sort of true, now. Virgil doesn’t have any children.

Deceit doesn’t have anyone anymore.

He’s all alone. Everyone’s dead and Virgil hates him and he has no one and what is he going to do? What is he going to _do_?

There’s a warmth and the slightest pressure around his wrist.

Virgil?

Virgil isn’t looking at him, but his hand has come to encircle Deceit’s wrist. Lightly. He could get it off if he wanted to. He’s a little…not afraid, obviously, why would he care either way…but he _suspects_ he might shake it off on accident, if he’s not careful.

And why shouldn’t he? It’s not like Virgil is doing this because he cares for Deceit. Deceit burned that bridge long ago. Virgil is just doing this because…because…some Virgil reason, who the fuck knows. Once he’s done with whatever he’s doing he’ll look at Deceit like so much grime in the kitchen drain and fuck off to the conscious mind again. Deceit doesn’t need his reassurance. He doesn’t need anyone.

He doesn’t _have_ anyone. He’s all alone. For the first time since Virgil first found him and brought him home, he’s really…

Deceit keeps very still, and he doesn’t dislodge the hand.

Maybe this will bring him some comfort when he spends the rest of his life in the empty subconscious.

Virgil’s thumb brushes his forearm and his grip tightens fractionally.

“We’ll get there when we get there. We have a time-honored fucking tradition, so be quiet,” Virgil says. Deceit snorts a laugh and Virgil exchanges an amused glance with him. From what he hears, this might be the least-interrupted history lesson yet. He’d certainly derailed the hell out of his own.

* * *

“Enough about my humiliating preteenagerhood. We have a lot to cover,” Tony says after a half hour of embarrassing memories. Deceit smirks.

“I’m not enjoying this,” he says.

“Oh, I have another one!” Anton chimes. “Did I tell you about the first day of Kindergarten? Logic was all, ‘There is no reason for your excessive anticipation. Our lives will remain the same as ever,’ and Dad hecking _owned_ him when we went in and made friends! Curiosity was super excited, too, so that just goes to show what Logic knows. Have I told you this one yet?”

Deceit frowns thoughtfully. “You haven’t mentioned Curiosity a lot. Who is he?”

Anton sobers, and Tony sighs and sits up straight.

“Might as well start here,” he says. “Curiosity was a friend of mine.”

* * *

“When we were younger, we had almost completely different sides from what we have today. No one alive right now was alive then, except for me, the front brain—that’s you guys—and…no one, I guess.” Because Fury is dead. And Grief, too. Deceit had always figured three survivors on their side of the brain was plenty before, but he is rapidly revising his opinion.

“There were other sides that don’t exist anymore. Friends of ours, randos, a couple jackasses, and…I had a brother.” Virgil is facing away from him, but Deceit can remember his eyes shutting for a moment and can see the deep breath. The wince when Morality clenches his fists is new. It makes sense, though. Fury always hated Depression. Sometimes Deceit thinks Fury hated Depression more than Virgil ever could.

Morality’s other hand scrubs at the red across his cheekbones. Virgil said it itches at first, taking on someone else’s role. All Deceit knows it that it nearly destroyed Virgil to take on Anton and Grief’s roles at once, and it had been weeks until he’d been anything but paranoid and broken.

Years, maybe. Morality might be a loose cannon in the near future.

Deceit is gonna watch out for himself, anyway. Patton’s never really been mad at him before and he doesn’t want to know what it’s like.

Why, oh, _why_ does Virgil hang out with these people.

“We know you—” Deceit waves a hand—his free one—and shuts Logic up. The tug on his energy is almost painful, but as long as he isn’t afraid, Virgil can’t hear it. Show no weakness, or whatever. He’s tired of hearing Logic’s voice.

* * *

“His name was Jordan, and he represented Calm,” Tony says. Deceit furrows his brow.

“I’ve met someone named Calm,” he protests. Anton shakes his head.

“He was only Calm for a little while. If he were still around, he’d be…” he trails off and looks at Tony. Tony looks grim.

“Depression,” Tony finishes. “Like how I’m Anxiety. We haven’t told you because it hasn’t come up, but sides can influence other sides. We’re not sure whether it was my—wait, no, let’s start earlier. Jordan existed. He was Calm.”

“I didn’t get that,” Deceit says dryly, just to have something to say. Anton snorts, but his shoulders are around his ears. Deceit doesn’t think he likes this ‘Jordan’ guy.

“You’re a bunch of punks. Jordan and I were brothers, we were supposed to work off each other and moderate out to something good. I’d get us revved up and he would slow us down. I think he might have also been in charge of making sure no one side got too loud? But yeah, we existed. Cool.” Tony fidgets with his hands and Anton won’t meet Deceit’s eye, either. Both of them are sitting a little closer together than they were before.

“And now he exists and you don’t,” Deceit guesses. Tony nods.

“When we were eight, Jordan went a little crazy, I think. The first side to ever disappear was…he didn’t come around to having a nameday, but I think he might have been Persistence,” he says.

Deceit raises an eyebrow. “First? No one ever disappeared before that?”

Anton smiles at him. “I know, hard to imagine, right? But we didn’t even know we could die before Persistence did. It’s hard to say if it was an accident or not, the first time.”

“All we know is that Jordan talked with Persistence and Persistence never came back. Persistence and I didn’t know each other well, so I didn’t know until Curiosity started asking what was up. Around that time, Jordan started asking about what we can do to other sides, how we can influence them,” Tony agrees. “I didn’t even know we could, before that, but apparently he and I were special.”

He says it like a black mark, like a shame, and Anton frowns at him. Whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t speak up. Deceit frowns, too.

“We all can’t make each other do things,” he says, passing Tony’s hand over his mouth for a moment to demonstrate. He’d only learned he could do it a week ago and it’s probably the coolest thing that’s ever happened to him.

Tony shrugs uncomfortably. He rubs at the markings on his face. “Yeah, we can, but this is…different.”

Anton smiles at Deceit. “You all can make each other do something, or make yourselves different in some way, yeah? You can make people believe you, if they want to anyway, or make them stop talking. Obsession can make the rest of us go to sleep, or redirect us, and everyone else has their own things. Right?”

“And you can do something?” Deceit asks. Anton shrugs.

“Sort of. I like to think I can be a person at all, and that’s pretty special,” he says. “That’s for later, though. We’ll get to it! But I’m kind of a special case. I could probably do something similar to what Dad can if I needed to.”

“What can you do?” Deceit asks Tony. Tony continues to fidget.

“I—” he starts, but his voice is too loud. There’s something behind it, something that isn’t Tony, or that is. Something loud.

Anton puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder and one on Deceit’s knee.

“It’s okay! That’s why I’m here. He’ll be able to talk normal again in a few minutes,” he says, and Deceit looks doubtfully at Tony. Tony’s hand is over his mouth and it wasn’t Deceit’s doing.

Tony gives him a thumbs up and a nod before shutting his eyes and taking deep, slow breaths. Deceit kind of wants to help, but he’s not sure how.

“It’s always harder at the start,” Anton says. “Once we get into it, and you don’t decide to hate him forever for no reason, he’ll be fine. I promise.”

Hate him forever? Maybe Deceit is better off not knowing whatever he’s about to learn.

“Should we…wait?” he asks. Maybe they could talk about something else?

Tony makes a rolling hand gesture and Anton shrugs.

“We can go on. What Dad and Jordan do is different from what everyone else does because they can change other sides—and themselves—in a more…it doesn’t…” Anton furrows his brow and makes a vague shape with his hands. “You know?”

“I really do,” Deceit says dryly. Anton laughs.

“Okay, I’ll admit, that wasn’t my best. Dad can make changes that last forever, is what I meant,” he says.

* * *

“Forever?” Logic asks. “As in permanently. For the rest of our lives?”

Virgil, who has so far avoided his double voice through a combination of disassociating and more disassociating, rubs his face in his shoulder. He doesn’t have any free hands for it. How to best explain?

“I can…remember when you guys all came to my room that one time?” he tries. Under his left hand, he can feel Deceit jolt. He glances back. “Look, _I_ didn’t let them in, they barged in all on their own.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything,” Deceit says, holding one hand up innocently. Fucking liar, Virgil thinks, but it’s not an angry sentiment. This brat is familiar; prickly and dry. Virgil has missed this side of him.

 “Of course you weren’t,” he agrees, just so Deceit can see the lie. Kidlet could probably use some reassurance. He’s been getting through this like a champ.

A distant part of Virgil says that Deceit deserves whatever loss he’s feeling right now, but…

“Why would your room have anything to do with it? If you can really…change people? Is there—if someone else were to take over your—I mean, that’s not even how it works, is it? That’s not how this goes,” Roman says, making precisely no sense. Not confronting Jordan must really be messing with him. Or being in Anton’s room for so long? It shouldn’t stir anything up, but fuck if Virgil knows how this works. He’s a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ kind of guy.

Well, he’s an ‘improvise while screaming internally and then freak out later about oh God why do these people trust me I have no idea what I’m doing’ kind of guy. It’s much the same.

Still. Room.

“My room changed you, right? Even when I didn’t want it to. Staying there too long corrupts you, changes you into something you…” ‘Aren’t’ isn’t quite the right word. He can’t make someone into something they _aren’t_. He just…

“It can make you a Dark Side,” he settles on. That’s how Roman would say it, anyway. Logan frowns, because of course he does.

“‘Dark Sides’ is an epithet Roman made up in order to justify his archaic worldview,” Logan protests, and Deceit shifts. Virgil doesn’t have to look to see the smirk. One to match nearly sneaks onto his own face, because Princey spluttering is never a bad time.

“Why you—how dare—I don’t— _archaic_? I’m not—I mean I don’t think I’m—Virgil, I’m not archaic, right? Am I archaic?” Roman asks. Why the hell is he asking Virgil?

Well, Patton’s a little out of commission while he sorts himself out and Deceit is just gonna say whatever gets under Roman’s skin, so that one’s probably up to the process of elimination. Virgil shrugs.

“You can be whatever you want to be, Roman,” he says. “The world is an open oyster.”

He’s not sure that’s how the saying goes. Actually, he doesn’t think that’s a saying at all. Whoops. Logan is perplexed.

“Please explain in terms that have some accuracy to the real world,” Logan requests. “Or at least that make some sense.”

Virgil opens his mouth to try again, but before he can, Patton speaks up.

“That’s what you are, right?” he asks Virgil.

Virgil cocks his head. Patton makes no more sense from this angle. “I’m what?”

“You weren’t Anxiety before. I know you weren’t. But you are now, right?” Patton says. “Because of—because of _him_.”

Virgil’s arm is really beginning to hurt where Patton still holds it, but it’s nothing he’s not used to. He remembers a hundred times with Fury, just holding hands as hard as each of them could and breathing, trying to work down from their respective emotions. Patton won’t really hurt him.

Deceit’s hand is stiff beneath his. Why?

“Kind of,” Virgil concedes. “My room got corrupted when I did, so it corrupts anyone who comes in, but if you leave quick enough, it’s not permanent. That’s why I don’t let anyone in unless I have to. But the change didn’t come from Jordan.”

“You know that for sure,” Deceit accuses. Virgil rolls his eyes. Everyone in the subconscious picks the same battles, sometimes.

“Fine, yeah, it _might_ have been Jordan. We can’t know for sure. But I really don’t think he was trying to kill me,” he says. Oh, jeez, he is gonna have bruises tomorrow. Patton takes a deep breath and huffs it out, closing his eyes tight.

“Just squeeze my arm and breathe, Patty, give it a minute and you’ll get through it,” Virgil murmurs. “Just gotta get through this second. See? Got through a second. Got through another one. You’re doing great.”

Patton shakes his head and crosses his arms across himself without letting go of Virgil. Ow, ow, ow. His fear rings in Virgil’s ears.

“That’s alright. It’s okay. It feels weird because it is weird, give it a bit and it’ll calm down. Just get through right now, we don’t have to think about anything else,” Virgil says.

Logan is watching the two of them. He’s observant. If he hasn’t figured out what’s happening to Patton already, he will soon.

“I’m okay,” Patton says roughly. “You can keep going.”

He still hasn’t opened his eyes and his knuckles are white; Virgil can see individual tendons in his hands straining. He’s gonna be sore tomorrow if he isn’t careful.

Still, Virgil wants this to be over with. There’s so much to do and Virgil can’t possibly do any of it, which is how he knows he’ll get through it all. He’s survived the unsurvivable too many times to trust the word ‘impossible.’

“What I think—and I’m the only person who was there and survived, so I’m definitely right, even though there’s a vague possibility that maybe Jordan was involved through some mystical twin bullshit—is that when Jordan went batshit, he made the two of us into disorders rather than sides—” Virgil is cut off simultaneously by his own hand and four voices. It’s the hand Patton is holding, so it twists pretty painfully. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

“—call yourself that! Virge, you’re part of our fam—”

“—ven if you _were_ to only represent Thomas’s anxiety and _nothing_ else, you are—”

“—say you’re not one of us? I understand if, maybe, you don’t want to be—”

“—love it when you say that. And you call me a liar! Would you just shut u—”

“Mmmf,” he says. He is largely ignored.

“—the _bastard_ , I, I _hate_ him, I just—”

“—n’t even exist if you—”

“—and I’m sorry for that and I thought you—”

“—s is why I have to be here for this when I could be in my room doing something fun for once—”

“MMMF,” he says, and continues to be ignored.

“—don’t like feeling like this but how can he even be related to you? I just—”

“—has never been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, so—”

“—my role in anything that, hypothetically, would have—”

“—leave me again, so why are you even—”

Well, clearly rational debate isn’t gonna work out. And Deceit is gonna run himself to the ground if he keeps silencing people, and really, Virgil is tired. He just wants his family—his remaining family—and a goddamned nap.

To this end, he pulls Deceit in for another one-armed hug.

Dead silence.

Virgil smirks, satisfied. He’s got control of his other arm back. He lets go after giving Deceit a little pat.

“Thanks.” He turns to the others, leaning into Patton to provide what support he can. Patton leans back and breathes with him. “Seriously, this is never gonna work if you keep going on about every little part. Let’s get through what we know and _then_ we can fight over semantics, yeah?”

They’re still looking at him. Logan is suspicious and Roman is glaring at Deceit.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Roman demands.

Virgil glances back at Deceit, who doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong. He’s just looking back at Virgil, a little lost and a lot scared but not particularly vicious about it.

“Doing what?” Virgil asks.

Roman huffs. “You’re all…cuddly. You hate being cuddly. What gives?”

Ah. Virgil probably should have been expecting this, but to be fair, it’s been a really long day and he hasn’t really had the energy to resist. It relaxes him to stay close to his loved ones.

Also, it’s really hard to be too proud to express affection in front of Patton, who literally just killed Jordan (what the fuck), and Deceit, who’s so scared Virgil’s ears are ringing. He has a brief fantasy of wrapping the three of them in a blanket and taking a nap.

Question. Roman asked a question. Focus, Virgil, get through this one conversation.

Cuddly. Why is he being cuddly?

Well, really…this might be his chance to say something he’s been thinking for a while.

“I guess I don’t see the point in it anymore,” he says, not quite brave enough to look at Deceit directly. “I mean, we have our differences and our fights and I kind of, I can be hard to deal with and I know I tend to just, avoid things? When they stress me out? Even when that’s not right.”

Deceit doesn’t say anything, and Virgil takes it as a good sign. “I guess what I’m saying is—I’ve had two chances at having a blood family. That’s two more than any of the rest of you’ve had. And both times, it ended…badly. I just—I guess I—I mean, now that I’ve, you know, I just wanna…I want to hold on to the family I do have. Blood or no. And all the stupid things that get in the way of that…I just killed my brother. They just don’t seem as important anymore. You know?”

Roman is softening and Patton manages a smile, and Virgil dares to glance back at Deceit. Maybe the two of them can…?

Deceit looks awful.

“ _Now_ you figure this out,” he spits the words like poison from a wound. An old wound, and one that Virgil made himself. “Now! Now that I’m—now that I’m not part of—I _hate_ you!”

Deceit leaps to his feet, hunched over himself protectively and glaring for all he’s worth.

“I hate you, Virgil! You’re so—I—you just— _now_ ,” he gasps for breath, “after all these years— _now_ is when you—I—I hate you! I just _hate_ you, so much! I hate you!”

Oh, shit.

Oh, fuck.

The lighting shifts to hide it, but Virgil can see that Deceit is crying. Patton puts an arm around him to pull him back from the bitter wrath in front of him.

He brushes it off. Gently. He’s done being rough.

Deceit stands, for an instant, panting heavily. Glaring. Hurt and alone and deafeningly afraid.

He is all he has, because his family has betrayed him. Because Virgil has failed him.

The latest of a long list of people Virgil has failed. But Deceit’s not gone yet.

Virgil slowly extends a hand.

“Deceit?” he says, quietly. Probably quietly. All he can hear is fear.

Deceit pauses, for a moment, precarious between anger and hurt. “I—I—”

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says, finally. After all these years, “I’m sorry.”

Deceit narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t—” No, that’s not quite right, this needs to be worded perfectly. Think, Virgil, _think_. “I’m sorry I wasn’t what you needed me to be.”

Deceit doesn’t lower his guard, but he doesn’t run away. Virgil takes a step forward, finally opening up that corner of his heart. Finally saying what he’s refused to for years.

“You trusted me to be there for you, and I let you down.” Another step. Deceit sways backwards but doesn’t move, so Virgil slows but doesn’t stop. The temptation to say something else, to minimize it, to escape consequences passes him by. He won’t let that happen anymore. “You were grieving too. You were in pain and I was too caught up to see it. I promised I’d look after you and I didn’t.”

“I don’t care about grieving,” Deceit says. “I wanted you to—I—I never just wanted you _back_!”

Virgil can almost reach him. “And I wasn’t. I wasn’t there for you. Even though I promised I would be.”

He puts his hand on Deceit’s arm, coaxing him closer. Slowly. Not too close or too soon. Take it at his pace.

“And I’m sorry about that, Deceit. I made a promise to all of you and I broke it. I had a job to do and I let what I’d lost take over my life instead,” he says. And he has to admit this, too: “And there is…nothing. Nothing I can do to make that go away, to fix it, to make it better. I can never make that not true.”

Deceit doesn’t lean in, but he doesn’t lean away. Virgil has his full attention. What he says now will change Deceit’s life and his own forever.

Ohhhh, so much fucking pressure, Virgil’s gonna die…

“But I can ask you to be part of my family again. If that’s what you want, too. If you want to come home with me,” he offers. Honesty, right? Deceit can see lies, so he’ll know Virgil’s telling the truth. Honesty.

“I don’t want you to be alone, Deceit. I know I always said not to talk to them, but the guys in the front brain aren’t bad once you get to know them. I think you can be happy with us,” he says, finally resting his arms gently around Deceit.

Deceit remains stock-still and fragile. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll miss you, and you’ll always be welcome with me,” Virgil replies. And idea strikes. “And I have a gift for you, either way.”

He draws back a touch, and Deceit’s arms come up automatically to hold on to his sleeve. He used to have a loop there on his jean jacket that Deceit would hook a thumb into just because. Now he has a zipper to fidget with.

He calls to his room, and from the wreckage, it comes to him, whole and protected even when the rest of his had been burning around it. The paint had just finished drying when Jordan had knocked on his door. Honestly, he’d never expected to be able to give this to Deceit.

Hidden from the others by his own body, he holds out a name placard.

“I know it’s late, but…” he offers it to Deceit with a hesitant smile.

Deceit throws caution to the wind and seizes it for inspection. He traces the letters; the stylized D that had taken five tries, fourteen drafts, and three stencils; the snake sunning itself contentedly, somewhat smugly, on a rock. The curves and edges of his name. The simple border Virgil had agonized over because none of the other placards had borders and he wanted it to be _perfect_ but it just needed something there, but a border? What if he thinks that makes him closed off? And then he’d added it anyway because it wasn’t like Deceit would ever actually see the damned thing, seriously, he wouldn’t want it from Virgil and Virgil wouldn’t want to give it to him.

But, well. Fratricide has a way of putting these smaller conflicts to the wayside.

“Happy nameday, Deceit,” Virgil says. “Bet you thought I wouldn’t remember.”

Deceit clutches it to his chest. “It’s not for me!”

“It’s not,” Virgil lies.

“It’s not me!” Deceit says.

“Not even a little.”

“I—I hate it.” Deceit holds it out to look at again. “Look at that! I hate it! I—”

He looks up at Virgil, grinning, for once completely happy with himself and his surroundings. He lights up with an idea. Waving a hand, he summons something himself.

“I hope you have a miserable nameday, Virgil,” he says, handing over…

Oh, goodness.

“This is gorgeous,” Virgil breathes. It is. It’s a beautifully crafted stalk of perfect hyacinth. Each individual flower is delicately shaped on the elegant stem in a perfect blend of wood and metal. He can see the veins in the leaves. “Did you make this, Deceit? It’s beautiful.”

“Nope,” Deceit says. “You don’t like it?”

Virgil grins, and taking a chance, musses up Deceit’s hat. “I’ve never hated anything more.”

“That’s too bad,” Deceit says, nearly interrupted by a yawn bigger than he is. He swats lazily at Virgil’s hand. “Sucks to suck. Guess I’ll have to take it back.”

“Over my dead body.” Virgil smirks. “Now sit down before you fall down, kidlet, we’ve got a story to tell. And stop shutting everyone else up.”

Deceit looks caught. “Um. Oops? I had no idea I was doing that.”

“Sure you didn’t, I believe you,” Virgil says, guiding him to sit again. Kid’s barely keeping his eyes open—that last fight must have taken the last out of him. Virgil gives him ten seconds until he crashes, like it or not.

“Would I shut anyone’s ever-jabbering mouths? Probably not,” Deceit mumbles. Virgil hums at him as Roman and Logan’s hands fall from their mouths and their silent argument becomes a whispered one. Patton, already freed, smiles and takes his place at Virgil’s other side.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispers, and Virgil looks at him, surprised. Deceit snores softly. He’s always been able to fall asleep just about anywhere when he’s not alone.

“I literally just said I fucked up, like, a lot,” Virgil whispers back.

Patton smiles. “And I’m so proud that you did! Facing our flaws is hard and you did it for him!”

Virgil snorts. Patton’s a weird guy.

“Hey, check this out,” he whispers, showing him the flower. “Isn’t this cool? Look at the petals!”

“Ooh, it’s beautiful,” Patton coos, making a bit of a show of it. Virgil appreciates it. “Oh, oh, look at them! They’re so cute! He’s really talented, you know. Oh, we should hang this up on the fridge!”

Roman and Logan continue to debate quietly in the corner, apparently not having realized that the issue is resolved. That’s fine, though. Patton is coming back to himself on one side and Deceit is snoozing on the other, and Virgil could stay like this for years.

Until he hears Roman.

“Well, maybe _I_ actually _care_ whether or not our friend has a son!”

How the hell would he know about that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm. How on earth would Roman know abour Virgil's potential children? And what could Virgil possibly have been before he was Anxiety? a mystery
> 
> Please leave a comment to let me know what you liked/didn't like! And check out our awesome fanart linked below!


	11. Space (Can't Wait for Gravity to Bring Me Home)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, maybe I actually care whether or not our friend has a son!”
> 
> Virgil talks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not,,, dead,,,,,,
> 
> I will finish this fic if it kills me. This chapter and an epilogue left!
> 
> We have GORGEOUS fanart available! [Jordan](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/174637042514/another-fan-art-of-hahanoiwont-s-amazing-fic) and [Anton/Vigilance](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/174388583549/it-took-me-a-week-longer-than-it-should-have-to). And a NEW ONE! probably my favorite tbh,, it's a [family photo](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/175650721809/the-softest-family-photo-ever-of-the-dark-sides) of the Dark Sides!

“Well, maybe _I_ actually _care_ whether or not our friend has a son!” Roman snaps. Rather than allowing Creativity’s rash words to provoke him, Logan has been attempting to deescalate, but perhaps best to meet Creativity ‘where he’s at.’ Clearly, reasoning with him isn’t working.

“Perhaps you do,” Logan says, “Or perhaps you care to absolve yourself of guilt.”

Roman is taken aback.

“What?” he falters. “I don’t—”

Logan raises an eyebrow. He has little patience for dramatics on a good day—Roman is wasting time. Best to ‘nip this is the bud,’ as it were.

“We were all ignorant, Roman,” he says. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know, because Virgil and the others withheld important information that we would have needed in order to impact the situation in any feasible way. I may not agree with their reasons, but we were all equally affected by the consequences of that choice. You had no way of knowing, any more than I did.”

And that stings. It’s Logan’s _job_ to know the right course of action, but when even Logic is kept in the dark, the best he can do is wait for information to be revealed to him. It’s humiliating.

It’s hurtful.

His whole world is shaken with every word Virgil says, because of a deliberate decision to keep him, _Logic_ , in the dark. Because the sides hiding in the subconscious—no. Because _Virgil_ didn’t trust him. Not until he had no other choice.

Virgil is Anxiety. He doesn’t trust easily—it’s possible that he doesn’t trust at all, not completely. Certainly that would be a feasible reaction to his trauma, with the one person he trusted first and foremost killing his loved ones and, apparently, manipulating him intensely over an unknown amount of time. It can be excused, even expected that he was unable to recognize the ability of others to lend him aid after such an incidence. It was nothing personal against Logan. They were all young and overwhelmed.

But it just… _hurts_ that Virgil didn’t come to him. Not before he was dying. Some part of him cries that he could have helped, he could have _done_ something if only Virgil had talked to him. Preferably before leaving him in a strange room with nothing but a burnt book and a plastic makeup case. Even now, it feels like Virgil could slip away at any moment.

He could have just disappeared. If they’d just continued on with their breakfasts this morning, they never would have known what had happened to him until it was too late. He would have died because he didn’t want to ask Logan for help.

Still.

Logan carefully excises that part of him and files it away for later. Virgil is clearly exhausted and unlikely to be able to control his own emotions, much less confront Logan’s.

Later, he will talk to Anxiety about next steps, and what to do in a situation like this. For now, it’s most important to allow Virgil to speak uninterrupted before he changes his mind about telling them anything. And that means Roman needs to be quiet.

Patton, not far away, is continuing to hover like he can curl around Virgil and dismember any challengers.

“What’s this about a son?” He nods a bit towards Deceit, but Virgil shakes his head subtly and nudges the both of them back to face Logan and Roman. He puts the creation Deceit that had made in Vigilance’s room down beside him.

“They’re uh, they talking about—” Virgil looks up to Roman, cocks his head. “What I don’t get is how you guys _know_ about Vigilance. What did Deceit tell you?”

Before Roman can get himself into trouble with a protective, shaken Anxiety (and Patton), Logan says, “Maybe best for you to tell us yourself. Deceit was…less than forthcoming with information.”

Roman remains a figure of restless motion beside him, and Logan places a firm hand around his wrist and squeezes, once, to restrain him.

Virgil reluctantly nods.

“You need to actually promise to let me get through the whole thing, though. You guys are, are great, I love watching you fuck around, but…” He shrugs, and even under his protective hoodie, he looks brittle. “I can’t drag this out. I just, I need to be done explaining.”

All things being equal, it might be better to wait until Virgil and Patton are less guarded and Virgil less obviously exhausted—he did nearly die at least once today, not counting whatever happened in the confrontation with Jordan. But Logan needs to know everything as soon as possible, and he’d much prefer it if Virgil didn’t retreat to his room to sleep for quite some time yet.

Patton seems to be in agreement, thankfully—if he were to object to this discussion, Logan and Roman would have virtually no chance of getting to Virgil.

But Patton just says, “We’ll listen, kiddo. You can take it at your pace. Stop whenever you need to.”

Roman starts, “But—” but is interrupted by sharp looks from Patton and Logan both. Pushing will get them nowhere.

Seeming to realize this, Roman coughs delicately into his sleeve. “Right. Of course. Take your time, Virgil.”

Thankfully, Virgil barely seems to notice. He stares blankly in Roman’s direction for a moment, blinks, and moves on.

“Okay. I, I know I’ve already, you know, started, and you kind of know most of this, but it’s…I’m just…” He sighs, and his hands disappear into his sleeves. He attempts to make himself physically smaller without expending much energy. “I’m just…tired. And I wanna tell this right. So can I just, start at the start again?”

He looks around for validation or accusation. Logan provides.

“Of course. A chronological telling would have the most clarity and be more likely to ‘cover all the bases,’ as it were,” he says.

Virgil musters up a reluctant smile, as he is wont to do. Unlike the others, he tends to notice when Logan is attempting to lend him a helping hand. Perhaps because he isn’t expecting it.

“I strive for clarity,” Virgil drawls, and begins to speak.

* * *

 

“Look, when we were kids, right, when we were really young, we were all sort of mixed up together. We all lived together,” Virgil starts. “And I lived with my—brother, I—Jordan.”

This is stupid. He should be able to say his name, he’s been saying his name all day and he literally was just there while he died, there’s literally nothing stopping him. Except maybe Patton, who’s a little calmer, if only slightly. Lots of deep breaths from that corner.

Jordan. How to explain, how to describe.

Roman is fidgeting. He’s not even paying attention, so that’s fine.

“Jordan was Calm,” Logan prompts. Virgil nods.

“Yeah. Jordan was Calm and I was, uh, everyone called me Not Calm.” Virgil doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes and moves on. “Jordan learned we could corrupt other sides, override ‘em with what we are. If you’re too calm, you’re nothing, soon enough. Like, you’re not anything but calm, so you’re not Logic, or Creativity, or whatever, so there’s no reason for you to exist, right? So you don’t.”

It’s quiet.

“You don’t,” Virgil repeats. “Exist anymore.”

He always gets stuck on this. The younger sides, they listen but they don’t really _get it_. So he just repeats it a bunch, uselessly, and they’re never any more prepared when someone disappears.

There’s no one disappearing anymore, though. Not for years, until yesterday. Today. It’s been a long day.

“I figured it out later, but uh, eventually I got sick of it.” Honesty. He’s being honest. There’s nothing left to hide. “It took four years. I let a lot of us die.”

Damning silence. Why did he ask for no interruptions, again?

“I can tell you their names. I didn’t know a lot about some of them. They were, there were a lot of them. I kept track.” That sounds somehow like…not the right thing. Sad, but for the wrong reasons, maybe. Patton takes his hand.

“I tracked him down and I—I didn’t mean to, I didn’t _want_ to hurt him, I—” He bunches his other hand in his hoodie just like he did that day. If he tells it, he won’t make it sound as bad as it was. He’ll make himself the hero like the others do.

He’s not the hero. He needs to tell them everything now, and be done hiding.

He waves a hand and the memory plays out before them. None of the conversation before, just him, twelve and already a murderer, approaching Jordan, killing Jordan. Jordan begging for his life, for mercy from his own flesh and blood. Jordan shattering into nothing.

He looks up just in time to catch Patton’s jaw working before Patton clears his expression. Nothing there now.

He doesn’t look at Logan and Roman. Doesn’t want to know what they think of him until it’s all said and done.

“I corrupted him back. He couldn’t handle Anxiety. Neither could I.” Virgil shrugs. “That’s the first time I had this,” he gestures to his makeup, “and my room changed after. As far as I can tell, I was careless about it—I didn’t think and I just drew everything wrong with us through me and it changed me. I couldn’t go back after that.”

 _I’m bad now_ , he thinks at them. _I pulled everything dark and sticky through me and I killed my brother with it and I’m never gonna be good again_.

“You couldn’t go back?” Logan asks. His voice is quiet. Virgil doesn’t look at him.

Virgil shakes his head. “I can’t be what I was anymore. That’s…it’s all gone.”

He remembers what he was, how excited he was for every new thing, how happy. It was… _thrilling_ is the word that comes to mind. Everything was just so _good_.

And now he’s the hollowed-out shell of that anticipation, dreading each new thing and terrified of screwing everything up again.

“But what about Vigilance, though? Where does he come in?” Roman presses. He’s sitting on his heels in a way that can’t be comfortable, shifting and adjusting. Even beyond his own terror, Virgil can hear the background fuzz of Roman’s fear.

Of course. Vigilance. He really should have known they’d figure something out, he supposes.

“After Jordan…I decided we needed to get our shit together. I, uh, I didn’t handle it very well.” Understatement of the century. Virgil hunches a little into his hoodie. “I didn’t really. I mean, I wanted to keep an eye on everyone, but I—I didn’t want to talk to you?”

Couldn’t stand to look them in the eyes is more like it. He can’t seem to stop staring at his knees. Patton is breathing deeply out of the corner of his eyes. He doesn’t look even a little at Logan and Roman. His jeans have a very interesting pattern. Lots of little stitches.

“I didn’t really—I didn’t get what was happening to me, yet. I felt different. I just thought it was ‘cause Jordan was gone.” That horrible emptiness had seemed to explain it perfectly. But the paranoia, the sudden _need_ to protect the other sides when he’d spent four years with his head in the sand, he hadn’t known what to do with it.

“I ran away,” he admits. “I took everyone who knew what was going on and I ran away. I blocked us off from you and I didn’t say anything. And no one else would, either. They were afraid of me.”

Jordan’s brother, Jordan’s killer? He can’t blame them. He’d have been terrified, too.

“I thought that would be the end of it, but we kept disappearing. I woke up and Trust was gone one day. Everyone thought I was the new Jordan.” Someone takes in a harsh breath. Virgil’s hands clench and unclench in his lap. His back is starting to hurt from how curled up he is.

“They should _never_ ,” Patton says. “They should _never_ have thought that about you. You were hurting enough.”

Virgil finally looks up—the new marks on Patton’s cheeks, inherited from Fury, are brighter than ever. But this one isn’t something to be mad about.

“They were scared. I’d killed someone and people were dying mysteriously. It made sense to assume,” he gestures vaguely, “I mean, everyone knew I could. I’d made it pretty obvious that I would. Not a great idea to let your guard down around the guy with no moral problem with fratricide.”

He tries hard to sound unaffected. Ease of long practice makes it just barely possible to choke down any wavering in his mind or voice. He doesn’t blame anyone for not trusting him back then—he didn’t deserve it.

“That a person is willing to act in self-defense is not enough evidence to presume guilt in a premeditated murder case,” Logic says crisply. “You had only demonstrated your ability to protect yourself when backed into a corner. Nothing more.”

Virgil gestures wordlessly at the memory playing on repeat in front of him. Jordan begs for his life again. Virgil corners him and kills him again.

“Yes, I see it. I can see you taking a dangerous person aside where he can’t hurt anyone else and removing the threat at great cost to yourself,” Logan says.

“You don’t—you don’t get it, I _murdered_ him, I killed my brother! I didn’t give him a chance to get better, I killed him!” He doesn’t understand why no one will look at this. It’s like they see that Jordan did something wrong and that makes Virgil practically immune to any responsibility. He killed someone! He still killed someone!

Patton makes a sound, but Logic holds his hands out in a calming gesture, caught in Virgil’s peripherals. Even Roman stops shifting impatiently—Virgil can hear him—to speak.

“Virgil,” Roman says softly.

Virgil nods.

“Virgil. Look at me,” Roman insists.

He doesn’t want to.

Everyone is silent.

He hugs his arms around his waist.

He shifts to sit curled with his knees in front of him.

He risks a glance at Roman.

Roman is sitting on his knees on the floor still. He’s leaned forward, and the look on his face is hard to read. Something soft and open in his eyes. His hand is reaching out. Virgil sat too far away for him to touch.

“Would he ever have gotten better?” Roman asks.

Patton makes a noise, and even Logan starts saying “Roman—,” but Roman shakes his head and asks again.

His eyes are so soft.

“Would Jordan ever have been better, Virgil?”

And Virgil has to hug his knees against his chest and hide his face in them, because he knows the answer. He knows it and it hurts, so bad, because he doesn’t want it to be true, he can’t understand it but he knows Jordan changed somewhere, and he didn’t want to change back.

It’s just hard to realize that he chose that life over being Virgil’s brother.

“No,” he finally says to his knees. His throat is tight but he doesn’t cry. He looks up at Roman.

“No, he would never stop. So I killed him. I had to kill him.” The admission is hard as it ever is—harder, this time, because maybe it might be true. Fury and Grief were always trying to convince him.

It’s a shame they aren’t around to see it. Fury would be over the moon. Grief would muster up one of those tired-but-real smiles.

But they’re both gone. And so are a lot of people, because of Jordan and Virgil. Because of Jordan.

He breathes in, deeply, ignoring the shudder in his chest. The exhale seems to take something with it, something cold and heavy that’s been weighing him down like a wet coat around his soul.

Somehow, he doesn’t feel as empty without it as he’d been afraid of.

When he looks up, Roman has retreated, and the dull buzz of tension has come back to him, but Virgil feels almost a little better.

Still, it almost seems to be someone else’s even, not-hopeless voice that continues.

“After that, we figured it out quick enough. We were going through too much change. A lot of new sides were born, maybe ‘cause of puberty? And all the missing sides’ jobs went somewhere else, but then sides would disappear because someone else was already doing what they do, or just because of all the change, we think. More disappearances, more change, more instability, and then that causes more disappearances again. We had to do something,” he says. This part is almost easier.

Well. Most things are easier than murder, however you look at it.

“After a while, it was pretty clear I wasn’t the one killing people. But we were never sure who would go next. Even sides who’d been around from the start weren’t safe. I wasn’t sure I’d get through it. But we noticed you three didn’t seem affected by it,” he continues. The other three exchange glances and facial expressions. They seem to be looking between Virgil and Logan for explanation.

“I…suppose, if the instability were to be related somehow to your conscious awareness of the change, it would be possible to quarantine?” Logan says. “But there are only three of us. This is hardly a sample size suitable to make guesses off of. We might have just been… ‘lucky.’”

Virgil shrugs. “Yeah, looking back I was a little paranoid. But it was working. You guys were stable, and the more you stabilized, and the more I could sub in for everyone else, the better it was getting.”

Well, more or less. “The problem was, I was so busy doing everyone else’s job that I wasn’t doing mine. I’m supposed to be a self-protective instinct, but I was just being a little bit of everything, and lending out my energy besides. I was probably gonna disappear next if I didn’t figure something else out.”

It had actually been Grief, uncharacteristically stubborn, who’d sat him down and forced him to look at what he was doing. _I’m not losing you too_ , he’d said, and when Fury had walked in it had turned into a full-on intervention.

“What did you do?” Roman prompts when Virgil stops to gather his thoughts for a moment.

“I mean, obviously he’s right here, he must have done _something_ ,” Roman stammers when everyone turns to look at him.

Virgil smirks a little. Ah, Roman. Just the same in a crisis as he is in the everyday. Possibly because every day is a crisis.

Making fun of Roman makes him feel a little better, actually. He sits up a little straighter.

“I made a mini-me,” he says. Even with the old grief, he’s never not proud of Anton.

It does, oddly, seem to take the wind out of Roman’s sails.

“Like—like a son?” Roman asks.

“Well.” Virgil smiles. “I meant to just be in two places at once, right? So I could just keep doing my job, but also try to stabilize a little. One of me would keep an eye on things—Vigilance—and the other would be Anxiety. And whatever else I needed to be.”

He decides not to get into names right now. Maybe some day, if Patton doesn’t mind him talking about Anton a little bit. For now, Vigilance is good enough.

He doesn’t really feel like giving them Anton’s name when they’ll never even know him. His greatest regret from his decision to section off the subconscious is that none of the front brain will ever love Anton like the rest of them did.

Or Virgil’s just biased. He’s been blinded to a lot, where Anton is concerned.

Virgil glances around the room, focusing on the present. Deceit is still zonked out. Roman’s posture isn’t usually that bad, is it?

Patton and Logan are somber—Patton is still a little distracted by his new role. But Roman just looks miserable.

“Uh, you okay, Roman? It really wasn’t that bad,” Virgil offers. Is he supposed to, like hug him or something?

Roman pastes a strained smile on. “Just keep going. What happened next? What happened to Vigilance?”

Virgil stares doubtfully, but Roman just keeps that unblinking smile on his face, and there’s not much he can do about that.

He sits back and keeps going.

“I mean, after that it was great for a while. Between the two of us, we could keep things moving in the right direction, you know? And then Deceit was the last to come up, and we had everyone we needed. No one was disappearing. I was thinking of starting to, you know, drop by the front brain a little bit. Maybe talk to you guys some,” Virgil confesses. Things had been so close to perfect.

“Point of clarification—this was when you started to be more active in the conscious mind? Or after?” Logan asks. He’s got that little line between his brows that means he’s trying to solve a puzzle.

He hasn’t got all the pieces, though. Virgil shakes his head. “Not yet. I was gonna start thinking about it, maybe, when, uh.”

It’s still hard to talk about.

Of course it is. That’s his _son_.

“When what? What—exactly—happened?” Roman asks.

“There was, I…” Virgil pauses. He doesn’t really know how to explain it. “Things were…look, Vigilance was part of me to start, right? And I meant for him to stay that way, just in a different place. But that’s not really how it worked out.”

“You didn’t know what you were doing,” Logan realizes, with appropriate horror. Absolutely true.

“I was a thirteen-year-old with, like, a nuclear reactor, trying to power a rocket ship,” Virgil agrees. “I had no idea. I was just throwing energy in directions. It’s a miracle I didn’t get myself killed. And another miracle that I got Vigilance out of it.”

Roman looks very tense. What the fuck is _with_ him? This isn’t his story.

“Vigilance was a whole side in himself. He was my son,” Virgil says. Even though they must have expected it, it’s like the whole room takes a breath—it doesn’t even have time to sink in before Roman interrupts.

“But what happened to him? How did he die?” Roman insists.

“What do you care? I’m getting there!” Virgil says. Ah, no, that might have been a little harsh, wasn’t it? “Sorry. Obviously you care. Just, I’m trying to do this, okay? Just wait a second.”

Roman doesn’t. “How hard is it to just answer the question? I just want to know! It’s not complicated! How did Vigilance die?”

Roman jumps to his feet, pacing a step and a half before jerking to a halt and throwing his hands in the air. Virgil slowly stands up to be level.

“I don’t know why this means so much to you,” he says, facing Roman as he makes aborted movements back and forth. Virgil’s hands creep forward. Behind him, Patton shifts.

“What does it matter? Just answer the question! I need to know!” Roman insists.

He really isn’t looking so good. Like, he’s _really_ not looking so good. His face is red and he makes fists, then relaxes them, moves like he’s reaching defensively and then turns around and smooths down his shirt.

Virgil is a little…he’s just sick of looking into his own face and being _afraid_.

“No, you don’t! I was getting there just fine until you started _yelling_ at me! I don’t have to tell you anything! I don’t ever have to tell you anything! We’ve been just fine without you, and we don’t _need_ you, and—and I don’t—he’s _my_ son, okay? He’s my son and—” Virgil’s voice breaks. He barely knows what he’s saying, where this is coming from. It sounds more like Deceit than himself. Just, he’s so _scared_ , all the time, and he’s so _tired_ of being brave.

He’s just given up everything for the hundredth time, and he’s sick of being the better man.

“Whatever your problem is, you take it outside. This isn’t—my _life_ isn’t open for debate. Sit down or leave, Princey,” he sighs. He takes a few steps back, slumps against the wall. Logan is decidedly quiet—a blessing, really. Logan means well, but Virgil isn’t sure how he would handle a cross-interrogation right now.

“Maybe we should take a minute,” Patton suggests. His voice is very quiet, but Virgil can hear him just fine. “Virgil, just sit down a second, okay? Just go and sit with Deceit and Logan and you can talk to them for a little. Roman, _apologize_.”

Roman scowls, continuing to fidget in a mess of restless energy. “I just want to know. I think I have a right to know.”

His voice, too, is softer now, but still insistent. “Virgil, I need to know.”

Virgil pulls himself up off the wall and drops heavily next to Deceit.

Fine. He needs to tell them anyway. What does he care.

“Vigilance wasn’t a stable side. I didn’t make him well enough. As soon as the job was done, he was gone,” he says tonelessly, staring at his sleeping, living family. Deceit’s chest rises and falls evenly, but not as noticeably as Virgil would like. He’s always run a little cool, too, and tired easily when he was new. And with the scar he was born with faced up, he just looks so…

“He never would have survived. I knew that when I made him. It was stupid of me to forget,” Virgil says. “I was using my energy keeping other sides healthy, and some of them _needed_ the help to survive, so I just—I wasn’t paying enough attention. I made a choice and he paid for it.”

And then Virgil paid for it, in years and years of emptiness in his heart and emptiness all around him. He hadn’t been able to look at the other sides, not even Fury, for the longest time. Not without wondering— _what do you do? What role do you play, what trait do you have that means you deserve to live more than my son?_

At his very worst moments, _Why did I keep you alive instead being there to save him?_

He’d never found an answer to that. The only one he knows is that life isn’t fair. None of them deserved to die.

There hadn’t even been a way to trade his own life for Anton’s. He was always going to lose.

He turns to the others.

“So there it is. That was the last disappearance—I started coming up front with you guys a few years later. Everyone else still didn’t talk to you—I guess we all just got used to it that way.” Honestly, he’s not sure why that shook out the way it did. Most of the sides still around couldn’t remember a time when they talked to the front brain, though. Maybe they just hadn’t wanted to.

“A few did move up to live near me over the years. After a while, only a couple sides really lived in the back of the mind. We just didn’t live too close to the front, either. Kind of in the—you know where I live. But uh, yeah. That’s…that’s the whole story, I guess.” It feels weird.

Like, he skimmed over the whole thing with Deceit, but that isn’t really relevant to the others. And the stuff from today…

Right. Damn it. He still has to cover how Jordan came back.

Right on cue, Logan says, “But how did it come to be that Jordan returned? Shouldn’t he have remained dead, if that’s what he truly was?”

That one’s…well. He doesn’t really have an answer to that. But he’s got a guess.

He puts a hand on Patton’s shoulder preemptively.

“So, uh.” He glances back at Deceit. Still sleeping like a log. That’s probably good; Virgil isn’t sure how much he knows about this—if anything.

“So. You guys remember when I, uh. I kinda. Stepped out,” Virgil starts awkwardly. Patton’s shoulder tenses under his hand, and he awkwardly rubs it with his thumb. This is probably what comfort looks like.

“Oh,” Roman seems to realize it first—that’s fair. He’s probably feared this type of thing happening if he ever relaxed his watch on the (mostly otherwise engaged) subconscious.

Except Virgil really was keeping something at bay. Something that very much wanted to come back, it turns out.

“Yeah,” Virgil says. “I thought he was just gone, but…he and I are…attached, still. I guess. I mean, I don’t know. But as far as I can tell, that’s when this started.”

He gestures around to the ruin of Fury’s room. God, he’s going to have to fix this. Fury would be devastated to see all his careful organization demolished.

He probably was devastated to see it. It was probably one of the last things he saw.

God, _Fury_. _I am so, so sorry_.

But Patton—the new incarnation of anger—is here, and he shrugs Virgil’s arm off his shoulder in order to hug him.

“So we just need to make sure you never feel that way again,” Patton’s voice is muffled in Virgil’s hoodie, but clear. “He doesn’t _deserve_ to live. You _do_. We just need to make sure it stays that way forever.”

Virgil tries unsuccessfully to draw back. “What? No, that’s—I mean, I guess, but that’s not—I, uh—”

He makes the mistake of looking to the others for help—and Roman is the first thing he sees, with a determined expression on his face. Whatever was up with him earlier, he’s definitely not messed up about it now.

“I think that’s exactly right!” Roman declares. “We just need to guard against any force that would work against you, and kill it! This fiend will not return, and—and none of us have to lose anyone ever again.”

His voice softens slightly, and he sweeps in on Virgil’s side. Patton’s arm ends up squished between them.

Roman is shaking. Virgil doesn’t question it, just shifts a little to lean in to Roman. His arms are a little trapped by Patton’s. Thomas was never great at figuring out those ‘human knot’ puzzles.

Roman grips a little too tight, a little too desperately. His breath is hitching.

He gets it. Virgil wouldn’t have really expected him to be the one to really empathize with losing everything, but maybe he was close with one of the other sides who’d died? It doesn’t matter. He gets it.

Logan shuffles to stand stiffly in their collective space and place an arm delicately around Virgil and Roman. He pats a couple of times, before settling in as much as is comfortable. He starts to speak a couple of times, but stops and lets the moment pass.

After a moment, he, too, is holding tight to everyone who might not have survived today.

Virgil is glad. Roman seems pretty messed up about something, and Patton is just holding on for dear life. And Virgil needs this moment, too—just for a little while, to feel warm and crowded in by family.

And to realize, too.

It’s over.

It’s just…over. No more secrets, no more hiding, no more separation. No impossible rifts or hovering fears.

They know he’s a murderer. They know he killed his brother, in cold blood, and they aren’t angry at him. They know his son, the light of his life, existed. They even know, a little bit, about Deceit—how he stood with Virgil when he’d needed him, how Virgil had cared for him when he’d been new and fragile. What Virgil hopes to rebuild.

They know what Jordan did to the others. To Virgil. To all of them.

Everything Virgil had ever feared them finding out, they know now. And they’re still warm and present around him, still holding on tight enough to hurt and crying with him.

Virgil doesn’t know how to live without that weight hanging over his head—the guilt, the grief, the secrets. Since he was young, he’s carried it with him everywhere, and it’s only gotten heavier with age. He hadn’t believed it _could_ dissolve anymore. Jordan, Anton, Grief, even Deceit…they had been all he could think about for so long. It was killing him.

And he’s still…he’s still not what he was. He isn’t Not Calm anymore. But there’s space, here, for Anxiety. For—whatever the hell he even is anymore. For Virgil.

There’s space for Virgil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't gonna post this until friday but I was in a car accident today (minor, no one got hurt, just a bit scared), and you know what? I deserve to get something nice done today. So here's my something nice!
> 
> Next chapter's an epilogue, just following up one everyone. Please drop a comment if you've enjoyed! It means a lot to me :)


	12. Epilogue: I Come Alive as the Shadows Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They'll be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go...the last chapter...my baby is all done ;n;

Virgil can’t live on the couch in the front brain’s common room forever.

He woke up there after talking through everything, and honestly he was pretty grateful to not have to talk about how his afternoon had gone on top of everything else. He can only assume Patton went over Jordan’s last…whatever. If that was his last. If Virgil doesn’t have to keep killing him forever.

But. The point remains. He needs to put his room back together.

His hallway is the same as ever—the flickering industrial lights shine a little more consistently, if not exactly brightly. There’s a weird feeling around the corner from his room where he thinks Deceit’s door might pop up, sooner or later.

Jordan’s door remains. Unchained; bright and vague as ever. Virgil’s not really sure what to do with it now. Most major changes in his life have resulted in some sort of physical repercussions; can he really just leave it open like that?

Virgil gets tired just thinking of it. He shuffles to his own door.

That’s funny.

Anton’s door is around the corner today, he can’t see it directly. But he swears he can hear someone talking…

Virgil fights down the instinctive static in his chest. Anton can’t get any deader than he already is. No one even wants to destroy his room, right? And Deceit is trying, he really is, there’s no reason for him to be doing anything…bad. Virgil’s not gonna get mad at him, even if he is. Which he’s not. But Virgil isn’t gonna drive anything between them if he is. They’re fixing this thing between them. They are.

Virgil’s hand goes to his chest, and he carefully feels it rise and fall. His heart beats hard enough to feel through his hoodie. It’s okay. It’s fine. He’s not gonna freak out.

The noise sounds mostly like a muffled voice, anyway. It can’t be very loud, Virgil’s barely down the hall from the corner. Someone is just mumbling, probably. It’s okay. It’s fine.

Virgil creeps towards the corner, fighting with himself the whole way. He won’t let himself run. He’s fine and calm and he’s _not going to freak out_.

“…just going to do my best, alright? If you’re anything like—”

“Roman?” Virgil blurts.

Roman whips around to face him. He pales immediately upon seeing Virgil, and holds his hands out placatingly.

“Virgil! I, ah…I was just! I was, ah…” Roman stammers.

Virgil, coming down from an approaching storm of all sorts of bad things, kind of chuckles a little. Maybe it’s a bit hysterical. Who’s to say?

But. He’s struck, in Roman’s presence, by some kind of inspiration

“Do you wanna, uh…see?” he asks, gesturing at the door.

“I’ve—I’ve been inside,” Roman says, inanely. Virgil rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, genius, I hadn’t forgotten. Come on, let me show you around,” he says, grabbing Roman’s arm and dragging him through the door.

“I don’t, I’m not—are you sure? Is it…okay, for me to be here?” Roman stands gingerly exactly where Virgil lets go of him, shoulder thingies up to his ears.

Virgil should probably be fixing up his room, but something feels right about this. Feels like something slotting into place where it belongs—maybe like healing. Maybe he and Roman really can start to be real, actual friends, too. Somehow, he’s sure that this is the way to do it.

Virgil lets Roman emit tiny silent screams in the middle of the entryway for a moment, rummaging through a false bench for a spare set of gloves. He could just summon them, but Anton had always done things the old-fashioned way, and Virgil’s learned to appreciate it. There’s something nice about getting your hands in the dirt.

Well, getting your gloves in the dirt. Virgil doesn’t think Roman would want to get his bright white uniform dirty.

His ears are beginning to ring a little from the high-pitched tension Roman is emitting.

“Put these on,” Virgil suggests, and Roman, whose eyes follow him like a deer in headlights, stares at the proffered gloves.

“You want me to help with…?” Roman gestures at the nearest trellis. “I mean, I can, I guess I know a little about plants?”

Virgil, for once the composed and collected person in the room, pats him on the shoulder. The physical contact seems to jolt Roman out of his stupor.

“Why not?” Virgil asks. “I need help with this one. I’ve been meaning to repot her, but she’s getting a little heavy for me to move her around on my own. You think you can help me get her in something a little more fitting?”

He gestures to one of his many rose bushes. He has been meaning to move her, and he hadn’t been really sure how he was gonna manage it on his own.

Roman considers the rosebush, already in a pretty hefty pot itself. “What’s wrong with this one?”

Virgil heads back to the back closet, which looks like a greenhouse door. It has a trellis on it that had been a hell of a thing to figure out logistically—the dirt had to move with the door or it would be useless, but it couldn’t be too heavy or the door would be a pain to use anyway.

In the closet is the new pot he’d made up for this bush weeks ago. The pot itself is big enough to curl up in, and Roman quits his hovering to rush in and help him lift it.

The trip gets a lot easier with two people carrying, and even walking backwards Roman manages to avoid hitting anything.

“Sure, she could stay in her old pot—” Virgil says, shifting quickly so that Roman will step to the left and not into the mums, “—but then she’d—okay, there’s a step—then she wouldn’t be able to grow. Here’s good.”

They carefully lower the pot, and Virgil tries to lift with his knees, but damn is it an awkward position. The pot drops more than settles the last few inches.

He takes a moment to catch his breath—Thomas may have pretty strong Anxiety, but Virgil’s been burning through energy like crazy the last few days. He might actually need Roman’s help.

“Can’t you just…make it grow?” Roman makes a gesture, but thankfully doesn’t actually imagine the rosebush any bigger. “Her, I mean. Couldn’t you make her grow?”

“It’s a rose bush, it doesn’t care what you call it,” Virgil says. He runs his fingers across a new leaf. “And yeah, I could. Or I could just leave it in this pot and it would live just fine; it has all it needs to be healthy. But if I want it to be the happiest it can be, I need to give it what it needs to grow.”

Roman frowns thoughtfully at the bush.

“So you take care of all these plants like that?” he asks, glancing around at all the pots and planters and detailed signage that dominate the room. It’s something carefully alive, filled with green and flowers and plenty of sunlight. Virgil has to work at it quite a bit; Thomas can barely keep a cactus alive.

Surveying his own tiny kingdom, Virgil shrugs. “I like to see them bloom.”

He doesn’t know if Roman would understand the kind of pride that comes with watching a new bud begin to peek out of a stalk, knowing that this growth was possible because he gave it the time and love and care it needed to thrive. At least, not without feeling it himself for the first time.

Roman does seem to get something, though, because he nods slowly, looking closely at one bush and then a vine.

Virgil starts filling in the new pot with loose soil from one of the many bags lining the walls. It’s just not worth it, in his experience, to try to keep those all out of sight. He always seems to need some loose soil for something. Having it around just adds to the charm, anyway.

For a time, Virgil can happily de-clump dirt and mix in just a little bit of fertilizer—his roses tend to be the most sensitive, and he spent forever thinking up special fertilizer for them when Anton had just started to get into gardening. Roman quietly walks through rows of plants, mostly flowers for Virgil’s memorial bouquets, asking now and again why this plant goes next to that one, or what this seed patch is going to be.

Virgil has no idea what Roman is thinking, but this is where he finds the most peace, and it’s kind of nice to share that with one of the front-brain sides. Roman seems a little less freaked out, at least.

“Hey, what’s with this bud thing?” Roman asks, halfway across the room. He’s bent close to the small bed of azaleas Virgil has been trying to grow.

Virgil stops sifting through dirt for a moment to check it out.

Roman is gently supporting a stalk with his ungloved fingers—he’s looking at the plant that split in two early on, before Virgil could quite figure out sunlight and water and most especially soil acidity. At least, he thinks that what he achieves by sticking his fingers in the dirt and venting fear would be soil acidity in the real world. It certainly does something.

The stalk that Roman’s holding is the one that lost all its leaves. The other one is getting much better, it’s perking up and makes for most of the volume of the plant now that it’s started growing outward. But this one just has a limp, wilted flower.

“That one’s…probably dead,” Virgil confesses.

Roman looks closely at it with him. “Why is it still there if it’s dead?”

“I don’t really want to cut it,” Virgil says. In for a penny, right? “I never have the heart to cut off the dead bits. ‘cause you’re never a hundred percent sure that they won’t perk up again, right? What kind of plant owner am I if I cut it off and the stem was still alive?”

Roman frowns. “That is a problem.”

“Tell me about it.”

The two of them stare at the stalk for a while. It’s pretty brittle-looking. This one probably isn’t coming back to life.

“I should probably just cut this one,” says Virgil, exactly as Roman says, “Do you want me to cut it?”

Virgil blinks at Roman. “Do I want you to cut it?”

Roman shrugs. “I mean, if the issue is you don’t want to cut it, but it’s taking up the energy of the rest of the plant to try to revive it, wouldn’t it work if I pruned it? And then the whole thing is healthier, and it can grow in a better direction.”

That’s such a simple solution, Virgil almost doesn’t believe it. “Would you? I mean, it’s my problem. I’ll probably get to it eventually. You don’t have to worry about it if you don’t want to.”

Why would Roman want to walk in and prune Virgil’s azaleas anyway? Why is he even here? He’s probably got something important he was over here for, and Virgil’s just co-opted him for an hour and a half and just monologued about gardening, and—

“I don’t mind.” Roman looks around the table—it’s covered in lamps and shades and seven kinds of trowels from Virgil’s experimenting. “Where do you keep your shears?”

“Uh. Here,” Virgil says blankly. He gestures over at the rack on the wall. “Really? You wanna just…cut plants?”

“Why not?” Roman asks. “It’s not a big deal. I can help. It’s the least I can do.”

Virgil stares until Roman starts looking a little hurt, and mutters, “Thanks. For, uh. That would be…really nice, actually. Thanks.”

Roman smiles tentatively. “I’m glad I could help.”

* * *

“I have a theory,” Logan says.

Virgil glances up momentarily from his phone. “Theorize.”

“I have an idea of what you might have been before you became Anxiety.” Logan glances over his own notebook, which has a list of traits Virgil _might_ have personified, each followed by reasons that he does or does not fit it.

Thankfully, Virgil does not appear too perturbed. He rolls onto his back on Logan’s bed and looks at Logan upside down.

“You remember what I was. Everybody just called me Not Calm. I didn’t get my nameday until I was already Anxiety,” he says, propping up his feet on the wall.

Logan disappears the wall for a moment and Virgil yelps as his legs fall back to the bed.

“Nevertheless, you must have represented something before Anxiety. I have a theory as to what it might have been,” Logan says.

Virgil, still scowling, flips back over and sits up. Despite himself, he looks intrigued. “Shoot.”

“How do you feel about Anticipation?” Logan proposes.

Virgil frowns. “Anticipation?”

“Anticipation. I do have a list of evidence,” Logan offers. “You were excited for new experiences—you were nearly always looking forward. You exaggerated expected outcomes of events, for better and for worse. There is very little chemical difference in the brain between instances of extreme fear and of extreme excitement. I could go on; but suffice to say this answer would solve all of my remaining questions about your origins and relationship with Depression, save one.”

Logan doesn’t flinch to mention Depression or his close connection with Virgil—to avoid the issue when every side already knows the truth would be a pointless waste of effort. By Virgil’s tired smile, Logan can assume that his efforts are recognized, and probably appreciated.

“I mean, why not, I guess?” Virgil says. “It doesn’t really matter what I was anymore. I’m Anxiety now.”

“Another mystery,” Logan says. “Most of our names have something to do with our selves, our personalities. Roman as a romantic, Patton because he is passionate, et cetera. But while ‘Virgil’ has a tangential relationship to the role you eventually took as a protector of the subconscious sides, I cannot draw a clear connection between your name and your initial role. Neither Excitement nor Anticipation would seem to fit.”

Virgil nods.

“Yeah, that one would be hard, Brains,” he agrees. “Not a lot you can do with ‘Virgil.’ But Jordan has nothing to do with Calm or Depression, or Apathy. Maybe not everyone’s name is their role.”

Logan taps his pencil on his paper as he considers.

“That is true. I didn’t feel that I knew Jordan well enough to consider his connection to his name, though,” Logan says.

In truth, he’d thought he’d known Not Calm, once. But he’s happy—and much safer—to have ended up with the better brother.

“You couldn’t think of anything that sounded like Jordan.”

“And I couldn’t think of anything that sounded like Jordan.”

Virgil gives a rusty laugh and hops to his feet.

“Fair enough. Jordan’s more mysteries than I’m gonna tackle,” he says. “Believe me, Logan, I’ve hit my head up against that wall more times than I can count. It doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Logan believes him.

“And for my name, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal,” he says. “I’m gonna grab some ice cream and watch NOVA for a bit. You wanna come?”

With such a clear dismissal, Logan knows better than to push. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”

First, though, he tears his page out of his notebook. A heinous act, to be sure, but a necessary one.

He glances at it one more time—

 _Anton = Vigilance_  
Virgil = Anticipation  
???

—and throws it away.

What’s important is what lies ahead of them. And Logan has ice cream and jam to get to.

* * *

Virgil and Patton do talk.

About Jordan, yes. About fatherhood. About pride, and loss. About the holes in their home and famILY.

But they also talk about Fury, and the ragged hole he left—the last person to go into the subconscious and never come out. About how to _be_ Fury, what the new marks on Patton’s cheeks represented. The legacy he wants to respect. About all of the sides Patton wished he’d known before they died.

Not a few times, Virgil apologizes—he’d hurt the people he was trying to protect, and it didn’t save them in the end. He could barely save anyone.

But Virgil’s favorite nights are nights like tonight.

“Hah! Hah! Say it, villain!” Roman cries, nearly upending the board as he leaps to his feet.

“Nowhere in the rules of Uno does it say that the loser must declare the victor’s superiority, ‘at everything, forever,’ Roman,” Logan complains. “In fact, there is no singular loser. Why do I have to be the one to say it?”

“I can say it,” Deceit offers. “Roman, you’re—”

“Nope! No, no, nope, I am on to you! I know your tricks! I won this game fair and square, you have to say that I’m…uh…no, that doesn’t work…” Roman starts muttering his way through a few sentences, trying to communicate what he wants without saying he’s the literal worst.

“Mmm, how unexpected, he can’t think of anything,” Deceit says somberly.

“Truly,” Logan agrees. “I suppose he’s just lost at the game of wordsmithing. Perhaps we should play Taboo next.”

Across the island in the kitchen, Patton steals one of Virgil’s chips. “Family night was a great idea, wasn’t it?”

The new scrape-like marks on his cheek are still bright, but more orange in happiness than dark in anger. He looks a bit like a little kid who fell off his bike now.

Virgil takes a sip of the pop he’d come in to get and grabs the chips. “Yeah. Thanks for that.”

Even though it can get a little loud and Virgil does need to retreat to the kitchen for soda sometimes, there’s just…it’s nice. All of his ducklings in a row, or something.

“You okay to come back now or should we sit this one out?” Patton gestures to the argument over games, which seems to be getting heated. Monopoly and Life have both been conjured. There may be Uno card casualties.

Virgil smiles wryly and nudges Patton on his way past. “Nah. Let’s get back in there.”

And Patton goes with him.

It’s a good night. Virgil wins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter comes from another Ludo song, which can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70eLIFMt65Q).
> 
> I've really enjoyed writing this story, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. Thank you so much for your kind comments and kudos/bookmarks, it's meant a lot to me that this fandom is so friendly and welcoming! Thank you!!!

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://hahanoiwont.tumblr.com) (the post for this story is [here](http://hahanoiwont.tumblr.com/post/173907382509), the masterpost for all of my Sanders Sides content is [here](http://hahanoiwont.tumblr.com/post/179531155539))
> 
> The song the title is based off of is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3FuiYB9zwY).
> 
> Beautiful, lovely pieces of fanart: [Jordan](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/174637042514/another-fan-art-of-hahanoiwont-s-amazing-fic), [Anton/Vigilance](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/174388583549/it-took-me-a-week-longer-than-it-should-have-to), and a [family photo](http://alldragonsarecats.tumblr.com/post/175650721809/the-softest-family-photo-ever-of-the-dark-sides) of the Dark Sides! They're each individually perfect and I love them! Please shower our favorite artist with love.


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